Andrew Blauvelt is curator of Architecture and Design and chief of communications and audience engagement at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. A practicing graphic designer, his work has been profiled in i-D, Idea, Eye, Surface, Print and Metropolis and has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York and the Design Museum, London. His essays have appeared in Eye, Emigré, and Visible Language and the anthologies Critical Writings on Graphic Design and The Education of a Graphic Designer. Blauvelt has been a visiting professor in the graduate design programs of the Jan van Eyck Academie, Rhode Island School of Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art. He was chair of the Graphic Design Department at the College of Design, North Carolina State University. He received his MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and his BFA in Visual Communication from the Herron School of Art of Indiana University.

Tom Crabtree is the founder and creative director of Manual, a design and branding agency in San Francisco. A native of Yorkshire, England, Tom spent the first part of his career in London working for the design studios Spin and MadeThought, with clients in fashion, design, music, publishing and contemporary art. In 2006, Tom relocated to San Francisco to work for Apple, where he focused on package design and art direction for software and hardware products, which included the award-winning iPhone packaging. Tom also worked on creative for Apple’s product launches and its retail and event initiatives. In 2009, he founded Manual with Patricia Callaway. Their clients include Levi’s, Gap, Google, Nest and Slice.

Adam Michaels is the cofounder of Project Projects, a design studio in New York producing commissioned work and independent curatorial, editorial and publishing projects. The studio applies its critical approach across a wide range of media and scales, from printed ephemera, books and websites to exhibitions, institutional identity programs and public signage systems. Project Projects was honored in 2009 and 2011 as a finalist in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum's National Design Awards. Michaels edits and designs the Inventory Books paperback series, published by Princeton Architectural Press. The series presents critical content in an engaging format, using unconventional narrative modes, syntheses of texts and images, and context-specific typography. The third and most recent title in the series is The Electric Information Age Book: McLuhan/Agel/Fiore and the Experimental Paperback.

Cheryl Towler Weese is founder and creative director of Studio Blue, a Chicago-based studio that works with museums, universities and other organizations that serve the public. Her clients include the Art Institute of Chicago, the Sam Fox School of Art and Design at Washington University, the Guggenheim Museum, and Syracuse University's College of Art and Design. Her work has received medals from the Stiftung Buchkunst and the Carl Hertzog awards, and has been recognized by numerous design publications and competitions including Eye, Graphis, ID, Novum and the Type Directors Club. Her work has been placed in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Newberry Library and the Denver Art Museum. She holds a BA in studio art from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Yale.

Alisa joined Leo Burnett in 2008 and is SVP/Design Director, overseeing the agency's department of design. She has worked as a designer for more than 15 years. Current and past clients include Crate & Barrel, CB2, Hallmark, Kellogg’s, McDonalds, Archeworks, Einstein Bros Bagels and Coca-Cola. Prior to joining Burnett, Alisa served as a design director at Interface and senior designer at VSA Partners. The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) recently named Alisa as one of three emerging female Chicago designers. Her contributions to Leo Burnett’s HumanKind book were selected for the 2011 Communication Arts Design Annual. Her work has also been recognized by the Type Directors Club, The One Show, D&AD and Print magazine. Alisa graduated from Michigan State University and completed post-graduate work at the Yale Summer Program in Switzerland.