Maria Papaefstathiou is a graphic designer, illustrator and blogger from Athens, Greece. She has been focusing her research on poster design and particular on social poster design and portrait design. Her most recent poster project is a series of posters celebrating great personalities of Greek and Jamaican traditional and popular culture.. These include actors, singers, musicians, poets etc. This is an ongoing project. “I believe that design is a powerful tool that we designers can use to spark enthusiasm, change mind sets and bring positive actions to our world and our culture”.

 

She is also the Co-founder of the International Reggae Poster Contest which was launched on December 2011, partnering, the creative activist Michael Thompson aka Freestylee.

 

Maria is the founder and editor of graphicart-news.com blog. She carefully curates high quality designs, illustrations, and art, from all over the world that will teach and provoke other designers. Many consider her blog to be an exceptional educational tool.

 

She was awarded and invited to participate in International exhibitions, showcasing her posters in group exhibitions such as: Belgium, South Korea, Jamaica, Greece, Turkey, Cape Town, Poland, China, USA etc.

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An award-winning designer, illustrator, photographer, artist and design events curator. 

 

She is member of the DUU (Designers Union of Ukraine) and «Society of Designers» International Association since 2001. Member of the C-IDEA association (International Design Educator Association, China) since 2017. Also she is co-founder of the DUU in Dnipropetrovsk (Designers Union of Ukraine), co-founder and president of the COW International Design festival (http//www.cow.com.ua), which has been held annually since 2004. 

 

Helen has received many important awards including «Lege artis» Honorary Award and Medal of Honor from the DUU (Designers Union of Ukraine) for the powerful contribution she has made to the development of design in Ukraine and Gold Medal named after Alexander Rodchenko (awarded from «Society of Designers International Association) and other.

 

Was invited to jury member and as a speaker to do presentations and workshops for different prestigious design events and for universities in Ukraine, Austria, Iran, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. 

 

She also exhibited his works at many important exhibitions, biennial and triennial in China, England, France, Georgia, Japan, Hong Kong, Iran, Korea, Kazakhstan, Mexio, Romania, Russia, Spain, Slovenia, USA, Ukraine and other.

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Michelle is a Biomimicry Professional and a Visual Communication Designer who is passionate about connecting Nature’s fantastic strategies to design. She is combining biomimicry thinking with design thinking in order to arrive at more sustainable and innovative solutions. Her research focuses on defining a life-centered design thinking methodology that allows the infusion of biomimicry thinking into the traditional design thinking and human-centered design process. She is looking at various tools and processes that would make the biomimetic approach more accessible to designers.

 

As a Clinical Assistant Professor at The Design School at Arizona State University, she teaches various multi-disciplinary design studios, lectures, and seminars to undergraduate and graduate students.

 

In addition, she teaches a practicum course as part of the Master's Biomimicry Program at ASU. She also travels to speak at various conferences such as at the World Usability Day, AIGA Y-conference, SustainbleUX, and at the Audubon society. Her goal is to change the paradigm from a human-centered to a life-centered approach.

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Li Zhongyang is a professor, Master Instructor and the head of Design Discipline of Capital Normal University. He has long been working on design education, research and professional practice. He participated in the National 863 Program and his works were featured in the National Excellent Textbook. He is a very experienced judge for many international design competitions and has been working as a design project reviewer in China’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Science and Technology. His works entered into the Chinese Art Exhibition, the International Posters biennale Exhibition in Italy, the Golden Bee International Graphic Design Biennale Exhibition in Russia, and has won many awards over the past years. His poster works were collected by the Museum of Art and Industry Hamburg, Germany. 

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He takes in charge of the planning of the Beijing International Design Week, the International Public Poster Masterpiece Exhibition, Contemporary International Ink Design Exhibition, and many other momentousdesign events in China. Now he is a member of the Council of China Society for Higher Education, a member of the international ICO-D, AIGA and the director of KSDS.

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Zhichu is a Graphic Designers，Associate Professor of Department of Visual Design，and Director of Design and Practice Department in Hubei Academy of Fine Arts. He was the curator of the "East + West" International Poster Biennale. He is the member of Academic Committee of China Advertising Association, Deputy director of the Design Committee of the Hubei Packaging Federation, Member of Hubei Artists Association, Association of Hubei Photographers Member of Wuhan Jiuyi Creation Association, member of Vision Strategic Alliance (China), and member of ADCK Asia and China Design Association.

 

He is a well-known designer on the China's media. He curated a number of design competitions, and he won many international awards.

Visual Designer / Columnist / Founder, Creative & Art Director of Graphic Stories Cyprus.

Aggeliki Athanasiadi works as Graphic Designer since 1999. Since 2009 she lives and works in Cyprus. She studied graphic design in AKTO, Athens - Greece, having gained a strong background in printed and digital communication and in advertising. She worked with advertising companies, as a freelancer and with large print-shops of Athens. She worked as an Assistant Art Director at the “Attica Publications Group”, for the technology oriented magazine PC Magazine. Aggeliki has participated in art and graphic design exhibitions both at home and abroad. She believes in the effectiveness of teamwork and personal and professional development through continuing education. She completed a three-year training program in Interior Design together with an annual educational program in Business Administration. She shared her knowledge on visual communication teaching as a private tutor, educator, and collaborating with private institutes. Aggeliki is a member of C-IDEA association "China International Design Educator Association" [the only global design educator association to serve for China design education and research]. She is a founding member of the Greek community of Visual communication designers VCDC - "Visual Communication Designers' Club". Since July 2014 she maintains the regular column "Grafistories" meaning "Graphic Stories" in the cultural supplement of the newspaper "Politis", on graphic design and Visual communication. The articles are also hosted at the blog makad.cy. She likes to share her passion and knowledge for design and is always willing to offer to the community. In 2016 she organised the "Behance Portfolio Reviews" in Cyprus. Aggeliki is the Founder, Creative & Art Director of "Graphic Stories Cyprus", the annual Conference on Graphic Design and Visual Communication in Cyprus, with the aim of imparting knowledge and specialised technical training as well as exploring the contemporary trends of graphic design. 

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PLUG is a non profit cultural association founded in 2010 in Turin. PLUG is  a creativity accelerator with an horizontal and participated structure. The institutional mission is to promote and organize cultural, artistic and social activities about design and social communication.

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The Association promotes creativity, participation, sustainability as important values through projects and activities like workshops, conferences, contests, and exhibitions.

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Ecuadorian Poster Artist born in Ibarra city.

 

The main focus of his work is the Concept, the same one that determines the aesthetics of each proposal, where the technique empowers this concept based on capture looks and detonate consciences.

 

Among the most important awards than has obtained include:

Gold Award Poster Annual 2018. Graphis Inc. New York, USA; Gold Award TIGDA 2015 (Taiwan International Graphic Design Award)Taipei, China; Bronze Award AGDIE 2014 (Asian Graphic Design Invitation Exhibition) South Korea; Bronze Prize 10th International Poster Triennial. Toyama, Japan; Honorable Mention in The 6th International Biennial of Socio-Political Poster. Oświęcim, Poland; Honorable Mention in the 12th International Poster Biennial in Mexico; Top10 Poster for Tomorrow 2011. Paris, France. Forming part of the permanent collections of prestigious museums of design.

 

Also he has been selected in Biennials and Triennials of Poster in countries such as: Poland, Belgium, Japan, China, Finland, Mexico, USA, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain and Bolivia.

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