First Place
Beth Shirrell, Goshen, Kentucky, USA
Kalakari Display Typeface

"Kalakari translates from Hindi to English to mean ornamentation. I explored typographic expression by creating a display font that captures and reflects the ornate culture of India. Specifically taking impetus from the countries architecture, the ancient art of henna painting, and Hindu iconography. The font is a collection of 26 majuscule forms that make up the English alphabet. The collection is entitled Kalakari Display."

While the notion of merging non-western motifs with the Roman alphabet is not new, AIGA XCD was deeply impressed with the results of Beth Shirrell's project. The exquisite rendering of Kalakari, its clear and immediate application earned this entry high marks based on our criteria.

Second Place
Devon Hirth, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Been Seeing Pink Lately? Promo

"Been Seeing Pink Lately? is a piece in an exposure campaign for a fictional social network called "ingk." The purpose of this network is to help link individuals of similar interests, but different cultures, together. This video introduces "ingk" to these individuals. In a world growing ever so closer together through communication technology designers will find themselves between cultures, much like "ingk" does, creating images of today that speak across all barriers physically and socially."

This submission not only encapsulates AIGA XCD's mission in its essence but also successfully, with deft humor and a fresh touch, invites our audience to experience the benefits of our Brave New World.

Third Place
FABRICA, Treviso, ITALY
Road Safety is no Accident Campaign

"This project was commissioned by UNWHO for the First United Nations Global World Road Safety Week 2007. The campaign includes 5 posters and public service announcements addressing “young road users”, who are the most frequent victims of road accidents. The aim of the campaign was to raise awareness and promote action amongst the general global public focussing on the 5 factors of greatest impact in road injuries: helmets, seatbelts, drinking and driving, speeding and visibility."

The need for a dialogue on Design and Social Issues is at the forefront of CrossCultural community. AIGA XCD believes there is overlap between the two, in light of our shared humanity and the social/economic questions that inevitably arise when cultures collide. Accordingly, submissions (such as Public Service Announcements) that inspire Designers and highlight the value of Visual Communications are greatly appreciated. We commend FABRICA for visuals that call to action and translate well across cultures.

Huang Li was born in Guangdong, China. A graduate of the the Guang Zhou Fine Arts Institute, he has practiced for many years as a packaging and graphic designer, winning awards including the 'World Star of Packaging' from the World Packaging Organisation. He is a member of the China Packaging Association (Beijing).

Huang Li is the editor and publisher of 'Package & Design' magazine, which in 2003 is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1973, 'Package & Design' is a bimonthly professional design magazine with great influence in China. As a bridge linking enterprises, designers and design colleges, the magazine has made a great contribution in the development of the Chinese packaging industry and in promoting designer's exchange, both at home and abroad.

'Package & Design's content includes rich resources for readers: 'Design Works From Abroad' with an emphasis on introducing foreign designer's creative ideas, the 'Design Exchange' which is a feature of Chinese designer's talent, and the 'College Exchange' which presents information about design education. The magazine's goal is to serve the designer and society, and to share design experiences with the publication's readers.

Pat Matson Knapp is the editor of segdDESIGN, the international journal of environmental graphic design. A journalist with roots in newspaper reportage, Pat has been writing about design, art, and architecture for almost 20 years.

Pat is the former editor of IDENTITY magazine (the international magazine of signage and corporate graphics) and managing editor of VM+SD (Visual Merchandising and Store Design) magazine. She has contributed to numerous design and arts publications, including I.D., HOW, The Artist’s Magazine, HouseTrends, and the Russian design magazine [kak).

She is the author of three books on design: Designing Corporate Identity (Rockport, 2004); Designers in Handcuffs (HOW Design Books, 2003); and Identity Design Sourcebook (Rockport, 2004). In 2007, Pat represented the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) as one of its delegates to the Icograda World Design Congress in Havana.

Ajanta Sen, Mumbai, India

Dr.Ajanta Sen is the International Director of Solar Project, a networking technology experimentation with cross-cultural collaborative learning environments for children, and a joint initiative between Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITBombay) and design universities in UK. The project (www.colorsofindia.com) has won over a hundred awards to date. She is also the founder of Design in India (www.designinindia.net), India’s only comprehensive resource site for design. Dr Sen has a Ph.D in Development Planning from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), Mumbai, India, where she is based as a visiting faculty, researcher and consultant to industry.

With her key interests in interpreting technologies vis-à-vis cultural paradigms for the emerging markets, the socio-cultural- ethnographic analysis of industrial design-related issues, and critiquing new media technologies and design issues for the media, Dr.Sen specializes in the disciplines of Interaction Design (chip-based products for real life that work interactively in a computing environment), Social Computing (bringing real-life user experiences on computing environment through proxies), and the Evolution of Industrial Design as a Co-evolution of Technology.

Some of her noteworthy (and ongoing) projects are with the MicroSoft Corporation and MicroSoft Research, Redmond, USA and in Hyderabad, India, Motorola India Research, Bangalore, Yahoo Research, Sunnyvale, USA, Google India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), India, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), India, the Khadim's Group, India , the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, among others.

Dr.Sen serves as master juror for international design competitions and keynote speaker at international design platforms, and additionally lends her time as advisory for the Indian Architect and Builder (IA&B), India. She has to her credit several international papers on design and technology and has been awarded a prestigious Senior Fellowship by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

Roshi Givechi, San Francisco, CA USA

Roshi Givechi is an associate partner at IDEO and a Co-Lead of the San Francisco location. She steers IDEO’s storytelling discipline, a cross-functional push for deeper engagement with clients and other stakeholders through all forms of storytelling. With roots in communication, interaction, and new media design, and experience as a design director, Roshi works to explore and define how people interact with objects, space, services, and each other. She has co-taught cross-disciplinary design at the California College of the Arts, has designed websites at Microsoft and MSNBC, frequently speaks at conferences, and often coaches IDEO workshop clients on ways to innovate. In January 2009, Roshi was profiled in I.D. Magazine’s “I.D. 40” list as one of 40 leading design innovators.

Halim Choueiry Beirut, Lebanon

Originally from Lebanon, Icograda Vice President Halim Choueiry is a design educator and practitioner based in Beirut. Having obtained a Bachelor's and two Master's degrees, he is undertaking a PhD in Design at Brighton University in the United Kingdom, with his research focusing on Cultural Mapping and Cultural Navigation in the emerging state of Qatar. Halim also maintains a strenuous focus in research activities as a collaborator on several regional design projects

In parallel, Halim applies his research findings through his own design studio, Cinnamon, which specializes in identifying cultural patterns, visual development of bilingual corporate identities, and the simultaneous typographic representation of Latin-based languages and Arabic.

In addition to design consultancy, Halim co-created, designed, contributed photography and articles to Comma, the monthly pan-Arab graphic design publication, between 2001 and 2004. He has won several national and international design competitions and featured work in various design publications.

Halim has extensive experience in judging for student competitions and advertising awards. His involvement in international events includes conducting design conferences, students workshops and chairing Creative Nights, an interactive meet up series held throughout the Arab countries.

He is dedicated to bringing about sustainable changes in the approach and thinking patterns of design in the Middle East and the Gulf region.

Bennett Peji, San Diego, CA USA

Bennett Peji is a Commissioner of Arts & Culture for the City of San Diego, Chairman of the Board of the Asian Business Association, a Public Art Committee member for National City and an AIGA national board member. He is a co-founder of the AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design and is San Diego's first AIGA Fellow honoree. Utilizing his "Form Follows Culture" process, his firm, Bennett Peji Design, specializes in district branding and revitalizes communities, organizations, cities and cultures. Peji is the recipient of the Arts, Business and Culture Award from the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Outstanding Professional of the Year Award from the Filipino-American Chamber of Commerce and the Asian Heritage Award for Cultural Preservation from Asia Media. Besides business and community service awards, his firm has received over 200 design awards. Peji is a co-founder and regent of the Baja California Missions Foundation, founded to renovate and preserve the historic missions in Mexico.

Yolanda Santosa, Los Angeles, CA USA

Yolanda Santosa knew in high school that art was her calling when dissecting frogs, factoring prime numbers and interpreting Kafka failed to interest her. Graduating from Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in 2000, Santosa launched her career designing main title sequences for film and television for yU+co, where she led notable projects for Desperate Housewives, An Inconvenient Truth and Zack Snyder’s 300. Despite her passion for motion graphics, she couldn’t seem to shake her fascination with branding. In 2006 she founded her own branding studio, Ferroconcrete. She landed the Pinkberry account, managing all brand and marketing strategies for the company. Ferroconcrete has allowed her to explore the loyalty people have to the brands that surround them. And she believes design applies to just about everything. Santosa has worked as an instructor at Art Center College of Design and is also an active guest lecturer. Her work has received worldwide recognition. She has been featured in several prestigious national and international publications and has earned over a dozen awards, including three consecutive Emmy nominations.

Ronald Shakespear, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Ronald Shakespear has been Chair Professor at the University of Buenos Aires and Past President of ADG. He founded Diseño Shakespear in Argentina 50 years ago, now directed with his sons Lorenzo and Juan. Ronald has been International Jury for the Art Directors Club of New York ADC, 1990, Segd Design Awards DAP 2008, Wolda Awards 2008, and many National and International Contests. Has also given seminars, lectures and workshops in 26 cities in the world. His last book "Señal de Diseño",was re-published in 2009. He received the Silver Pencil Award in 1987, Golden Brain in 2006 and the Segd Fellow Award in 2008. Diseño Shakespear wayfinding and branding mega-projects as the Buenos Aires Underground, City Hospitals, Buenos Aires Signage,Tren de la Costa, among others, have been published in most important books and publications in USA, Italy, England, China, Spain, Germany, France, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, etc, and exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Triennale di Milano, ICCID, (Italy). Major exhibitions were held at Centro Recoleta and National Fine Arts Museum, (Buenos Aires). Last exhibition in Buenos Aires - 45th Anniversary of Diseño Shakespear- at Centro Borges in 2005. Anthological Exhibit and workshop at Virginia Center for Architecture, AIA, (Richmond) 2006, and at The Katzen Arts Center (Washington DC), 2007. He has been lecturer at the Icograda Congress in Nice, Montreal and Sao Paulo and Visiting Professor at University of Alberta and the Simon Fraser University, Canada.

Joi Roberts, Chicago IL USA

During the past 15 years, Joi has worked in a variety of roles within the telecommunications industry, ranging from requirements gathering to software development/validation to user interface design-voice, telephony, and Web-to user-centered process development and institutionalization. Currently, as the Design Ambassador for the Motorola Consumer Experience Design (CXD) team, Joi is responsible for driving strategic initiatives internally and externally around design education, design culture, talent growth and development, and industry contribution. And, in her spare time, Joi is quite active in the UX design community-often organizing or presenting at local and international industry events and conferences. Joi firmly believes that, in order for the UX community to make a real difference in the world, industry and academia must work together to develop design leadership. Her experience as an engineer, interaction designer, creative soul, student of human behavior, teacher, mentor and community advocate have shaped her passion for interdisciplinary collaboration, diversity, and social responsibility in design education and practice. In her current role and through her industry participation, she seeks to spread these messages.