We have selected a range of inspirational speakers from leading firms across the US, tackling different aspects of design, new thinking, and the urban home.

Stefan Andren

Stefan Andren works as a Senior Designer in Nike's TechLab group, where he is responsible for driving product, user interface, and packaging design for the brand's product ranges co-developed with Nike technology partners such as Philips. Stefan also works for Nike's Timing and Monitoring group, focusing on products that bridge the world of consumer electronics and watches.
Prior to Nike, he worked for Motorola in Milan, Italy,and HLB in Chicago.

With a strong interest in teaching, Stefan has lectured at design schools in Italy, Sweden and the USA. He was an Adjunct Professor of Design at The University of Illinois at Chicago until moving to Italy, and regularly speaks at design related conferences and symposiums.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Stefan originally went to the US on an athletic scholarship to play tennis. He received his B.S. with Distinction in Industrial Design in 1997 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and then briefly studied independently under Stan Kong at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Home - Architecture from a Product Design perspective.
Reflections and comments on modern custom house design, touching upon sustainability, prefab, and efficiency of space.

Scott Henderson

Scott Henderson heads the New York based design studio Scott Henderson Inc. and is also Principal and Cofounder of MINT Inc. where he designs, manufacturers and distributes home accessory objects to over 150 retailers and museums throughout the world. Scott is known for his ability to transform the mundane.  He believes that if something makes you smile it becomes easier to use. With over 50 patents in the US and Europe his work has been widely recognized in exhibitions, awards programs and in the press.

Reality Products and Other Philosophies. Scott Henderson will explore the connection between reality television and successful product design, along with other philosophies that have been the drivers behind his work. What is it about reality TV that makes it so compelling to so many? If those same ingredients can be harnessed through product design, a winner can be created every time.

Jonathan Hayes

Jonathan Hayes is the principal of J. Hayes Design and has spent the last ten years at Microsoft, culminating in the Xbox 360 release. As Design Director for Xbox, Jonathan managed a team of two dozen, which included industrial designers, user researchers, user interface designers, art directors and prototypers. Before leading Xbox, he managed a team of HW/SW designers within Windows Mobile, building software and devices for people on the go. He graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied sculpture, and holds a Master of Industrial Design degree from Rhode Island School of Design. Jonathan, who has received numerous design awards, recently published an article in the Design Management Review entitled "Reconceptualizing the Xbox Platform."

Jonathan Hayes led the team that designed Microsoft's Xbox and will be speaking about crafting the Xbox 360 experience, and about the challenges inherent in developing a system from pixels to plastics to packaging this experience, business and design. He will also discuss his new venture in Boston and share thoughts on broader design issues

Bruce Claxton

Senior Design Director, Motorola Inc. Based in Plantation, Fla., Bruce Claxton has more than 27 years of industrial design experience, including more than two decades with Motorola. He directs a team – including an office in Penang, Malaysia – that has developed various communication devices, among them the IDSA award-winning Talkabout two-way radios. Bruce was President of the IDSA 2004-2005.

Bruce will give a short presentation on the issues concerning the changing environment of the home and how urban living is at the center of new product ideation and is the catalyst for future trends.

John-Michael Ekeblad

As Chief Creative Officer for HLD, he has a special eye for global trends and lifestyles with over 20 years experience as design strategist and catalyst. Has published articles in leading magazines and worked with consumer centric imaginative yet commercial aesthetics that created magic out of rationality for companies like IKEA, Razorfish and Tupperware.

John-Michael Ekeblad will be presenting his perspective on new trends influencing the modern HOME and it's ever changing decor. He will also be sharing with us HLD's new business model and discussing methods for staying competively innovative in the home space

Tania Aldous

Tania Aldous leads the Whirlpool Brand Studio, Global Consumer Design, Whirlpool Corporation. With the corporate mantra “Everyhome, Everywhere” Tania and her cross-functional team of Industrial Designers, Human Factors Engineers, Graphic Designers and Studio Engineers are striving to transform the companies core lines to not only functional but also emotionally appealing products as much as they strive to transform the culture of a traditional manufacturing company.
Originally from Melbourne, Australia Tania has a strong interest in design for cultural variance and brand design strategy.

Tania will present "Thoughts of Home". A global glimpse of cultural elements affecting product design.

Christopher Streng

Nobility. Enlightenment. Ritual. These are lofty words for industrial designers to be throwing around. But they're part of the regular vocabulary of the brothers Christopher and Daniel Streng and their seven-person firm STRENG, located in
Garfield Park.

Christopher Streng has been involved with a diverse range of projects from portable structures, interiors and furnishing to electronics, installations and consumer products. Christopher has worked with kitchen and bath companies such as Kitchen Aid, Kohler, Kallista, Ann Sacks, and Whirlpool. Other recent clients have
included 3M, Swatch, Pla by Whirlpool, Idee and Tokyo based Sputnik.

The Ethos of Home.
Christopher Streng brings 15 years of practice in Furniture, Product and Experience Design to bare on this discussion. He shares interpretations of what defines the concept of home and the environment that surrounds us.

The fluid and often vague definition of Home can cause controversy and anxiety. Thoughts of Home are linked to the self-definition (self image) of a vast percentage of the modern population. Christopher discusses a partial perspective of the notion Home and interprets selected attitudes for this discussion.

Doris Wells-Papanek

With over 25 years of experience in design, software, and education, Doris Wells-Papanek has developed corporate design strategies, managed user interface groups, taught design, researched and designed usability studies, and designed the appearance and behavior of software. She has worked with companies such as Xerox, Apple, Lotus, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, Philips, and Intuit. Her work has led to over twenty design and utility patents.

In the education sector, Doris applies brain-based research to design tailored learning tools and coaches individuals who require additional assistance to meet learning expectations, organize their time, tasks, or thoughts. As a partner of Greenleaf & Papanek Publications, Doris is a co-author of three brain-based instructional books.

LEARNING & THE BRAIN WITH DESIGN IN MIND
The theme of this conference, “Urban Seduction & Design” suggests that designers play a significant role in persuading, tempting, or attracting city inhabitants with the qualities, characteristics, features, and attributes of a product. These elements define the user’s learning experience, actions, and behaviors associated while interacting with the product.

Neuroscientists have learned more in the last ten years regarding how our brain works than in the last 100 years combined. Educators and psychologists are now applying this research to understand how we learn and what motivates us. Integrating this knowledge in the design process can prove to have substantial benefit to improve the user’s experience.

Applying these innovative brain-based discoveries can empower designers to:
-Increase awareness of how end users think and learn
-Enhance end user motivation by building on key attributes of the design
-Engage and develop end user’s interest level in the learning proces

Grant Achatz & Martin Kastner

Grant Achatz is the head chef and owner of Alinea, an experimental restaurant in Chicago with a worldwide buzz. In a recent review the reporter stated "... I predict that it will quickly prove itself one of America's most unusual, provocative, challenging and entertaining restaurants. Also, I'll bet, one of its best."

One of the nation's most acclaimed young chefs — his accolades include being named the Rising Star Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation and one of Food and Wine magazine's best new chefs— Mr. Achatz also has proved to be a smart, if high-risk, hire for Trio proprietor Henry Adaniya.

Martin Kastner is the designer of Alinea's new food utensils. A Czech-born designer, Kastner originally trained as a blacksmith and worked fashioning doors, gates, and weaponry for a 16th century castle. Later, he enrolled in the Fine Arts Institute in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic, pursuing studies in natural materials design. Kastner then received his MFA in metal sculpture from Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic. He has been working in the United States since 1998, setting up Crucial Detail design studio in Columbus, OH and San Diego before coming to Chicago in 2005.

Chef Grant Achatz and designer Martin Kastner will speak about their
interdisciplinary collaboration resulting in a series of unconventional
utensils. The presentation will illustrate the thought process behind
their alternative tableware, as well as its impact on the dining
experience through increased level of control and functionality.

Grace Bonney

Grace Bonney, founder of the home design blog, design*sponge and has been featured in many publications, has a daily reader base of over 10,000, and also writes for the Philadelphia Enquirer.

Susan Yashinsky

Susan Yashinsky has over 26 years experience in retail and marketing management. She joined Sphere Trending 3 years ago to head up their Macro Trend division. Sphere Trending works with a diverse clientele of major retailers and manufacturers to bring product innovation from a thorough understanding of key Macro (consumer, society, technology, retail) and Micro (product, color, materials, design, etc.) trend information.

Susan will share Macro insights covering the consumer generations, why their expectations for the home vary and how these values are driving design innovation across many product categories. As our living environments evolve, we are able to blend work, living and play while also segmenting interiors into “iSpace” and “weSpace” as needed. The home of tomorrow is only limited by our imagination.

Tara Heibel

Tara is the owner of SPROUT HOME, a hybrid design store/plant nursery. Tara believes a modern aesthetic can live in both the home and garden. Sprout Home offers a wide range of contemporary products to "excite and enliven your environment" for both inside and outside the modern urban home.

John Caruso

John Caruso was born in the Midwest and was brought up with an acute awareness of the outdoor world. He is a practicing Industrial Designer focused on finding ecologically sensitive materials and product solutions for his clientele.

His experience of designing TVs for Zenith was a dream which was shattered by discovering Zenith TV’s dumped in an alley as waste. The realization that he designs landfill was staggering and he decided to return to school to research this phenomenon and potential solutions. He studied the teachings of the ULM school in Germany and founded a company, Blu Planet, developing housewares from high content post consumer recycled material.

He received a prestigious grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has designed for Crate & Barrel, Target, and the Container Store. Caruso currently teaches Industrial Design at the University of Notre Dame, where he regularly lectures and collaborates with the college of business and the college of engineering on alternative thinking strategies in product development.

John will give a workshop on the concern of air quality and discusses about the pollutants that the products we design can create, and how to alieviate this.

Dan Kraemer

Dan Kraemer is an internationally recognized brand strategist with 15 years experience in identity, print, packaging, product planning and interactive design. Dan is founding Partner and Chief Creative Officer of IA Collaborative where through an immersive approach to design he leads the teams that define new market opportunity, uncover deep consumer insight and develop design innovation. IA Collaborative is widely recognized as one of the hottest “next generation” design firms in the US.

In January of 2006, Dan, along with business partners Scott Wilson and Kathleen Brandenburg, launched Ooba, a modern baby products company. Ooba has been featured in Dwell Magazine, Fit Pregnancy, and the 2006 International Home & Housewares Show. In January Ooba offered the world's first modern bassinet.

Matthew T. Zabel

Paul Hatch (Conference Chair)

President of TEAMS Design in Chicago, Paul is also IDSA Midwest District VP and therefore has the responsibility of organizing and chairing the conference. For this year's conference he assembled a team of twelve talented designers from the Chicago area who have each administered the undertaking of the various tasks.
Paul is otherwise known for his IDSA Fight Club which is due to return to Chicago in November, and he is currently co-editing the IDSA book 'REALize - Design Means Business' with Deana McDonagh.