Do you perform better or learn easier when having a reason to do so? I sure do.
Typography has long taunted me as a beautiful and expression form of communication, and being that I'm a designer, artist, illustrator, and photographer, it seems only fitting that I should make an effort to learn it. So I created a project for myself to do exactly that.
My good friend, Lisa Shufro put together the world class speaker line up for this year's Life is Beautiful festival.
I offered to create custom introduction slides for each of the mind-blowing 36 speakers, and my own creative challenge was to craft each name by hand with ink, paint, brush pens, fine tip nibs and so forth, along with only using a photograph that I have captured. It was one of the most audacious week long projects I can remember taking on, having to average 5 full slides a day.
It was important for me to research each speaker, and have their previous talks playing in the background while drawing their names. Not only did it help give me a sense of their style, but it turned me on to some incredible humans with amazing stories that got me really excited to see them in person. I worked up mood boards with various styles of typography for some inspiration, which helped teach me a lot, and other times I'd just straight to paper and venture into free form to see how comfortable I was getting.
It was pretty fulfilling to see these wonderful people standing in front of my slides, and there even ended up being some pretty serendipitous connections between what the speaker ended up wearing or saying, to what I had created.
Check 'em out:
Lizzie Velasquez, 25 years old, is a graduate of Texas State University, a motivational speaker, and author of three books: Lizzie Beautiful, Be Beautiful, Be You, and Choosing Happiness. She is one of only three known people in the world with a medical condition that doesn’t allow her to gain weight or create muscle.
For 40 years Penn & Teller have defied labels—and at times physics and good taste– by redefining the genre of magic and inventing their own very distinct niche in comedy.
With sold out runs on Broadway, world tours, Emmy-winning TV specials and hundreds of outrageous appearances on everything from Letterman to Fallon, Friends to The Simpsons, Chelsea Lately to Top Chef, comedy’s only team show no signs of slowing down.
With an amazing seven wins, including 2013, as “Las Vegas Magicians of the Year,” their 13-year run at The Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino makes them one of the longest running and most-beloved shows in Las Vegas history, outselling every other resident magician on The Strip.
Their acclaimed Showtime series, Penn & Teller: BS! was nominated for 13 Emmys and is the longest-running series in the history of the network. The show tackled the fakes and frauds behind such topics as alien abduction, psychics and bottled water.
Rehan Choudhry is the Founder of Life is Beautiful. As an avid festival-goer and creative business professional, Choudhry came up with the idea for a music, food, art and learning festival after leaving his high-profile corporate job and looking to explore his passion.
Shiza Shahid is an entrepreneur and social activist of Pakistani origin. She is the co-founder and global ambassador of the Malala Fund, the organization representing the young Pakistani activist who was shot by the Taliban for her campaign for girls’ education.
After 10 years as an editorial photographer in the fashion and music industries in both the US and Europe, Giles Duley now focuses his work on humanitarian projects. Although documenting challenging, and at times, horrific situations, Duley captures the strength of those who fight their adversity rather than succumb. His photographs draw the viewer to the subject, creating intimacy and empathy for lives differing from ours only in circumstance. In 2011, whilst on patrol with 75th Cavalry Regiment, United States Army in Afghanistan, Duley stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED). He was severely injured, losing both legs and an arm. He is now back working.
John Rennie is a science writer, editor, and lecturer based in New York. Viewers of The Weather Channel know him as the host of the original series Hacking The Planet and co-host of the hit special The Truth About Twisters.
Dr. Gabor Forgacs is a theoretical physicist turned bioengineer turned innovator and entrepreneur. He 3D prints meat, leather, and living tissue.
Andrew Hessel is a Distinguished Researcher with the Bio/Nano Programmable Matter Group at Autodesk Inc. in San Francisco and a futurist in genomic technologies. Working as a connector and catalyst in biotechnology, he helps industry, academic, and authorities better understand the changes happening in life science. He also is the founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, the world’s first cooperative biotechnology company, which is aiming to produce open source viral therapies for cancer.
Dr. Gabor Forgacs, Andrew Hessel, and John Rennie talk about the future.
Scot’s career has taken him across the globe, to several TV shows and movies. He charms audiences from New Zealand to New Mexico at outdoor bashes and corporate events with his strange brand of comedy pancake juggling.
PES is frequently cited as one of the most unique video artists of his generation. His signature style of animation with objects blends a pop art sensibility with touches of surrealism. His first short Roof Sex won the “Best First Film” award at the Annecy Animation Festival in 2002 and went on to receive 25 million+ hits online.
Named to Time’s “100” Most Influential list and awarded “Outstanding Chef” by the James Beard Foundation, José Andrés is an internationally-recognized culinary innovator, passionate advocate for food and hunger issues, author, educator, television personality and chef/owner of ThinkFoodGroup.
Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova and Maria (Masha) Alekhina are Russian conceptual artists, musicians, and political activists.
Photo by @bratalie27
Kavita is the Founder & CEO of Fenugreen, a social enterprise taking on the massive global challenge of food waste with a simple innovation, FreshPaper.
Adam Braun, New York Times bestselling author and Founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning “for-purpose” organization that has built more than 200 schools across Africa, Asia, and Latin America since 2008.
Dr. Damania, also known as "ZDoggMD", is making the leap from satire to actionable change by implementing an innovative model of healthcare delivery that promotes wellness at both the individual and community levels. He founded Turntable Health, a membership model primary care ecosystem, on the premise that great care starts with a great culture.
As Chairman of Las Vegas Host Committee, Oscar B. Goodman is charged with being the No. 1 Ambassador for tourism in Las Vegas. As such, he welcomes visitors to Las Vegas and rallies the local residents behind our leading industry: tourism. Prior to serving as Chairman of the Host Committee, Oscar B. Goodman served as the “Happiest Mayor in the Universe” for Las Vegas.
Photo by @bratalie27
Just this summer Amelia Rose Earhart completed her namesake’s unforgettable 1937 flight around the world.
Andy Grignon has made a career out of creating and shipping highly visible consumer products. He started out at Apple in the Advanced Technology Group developing QuickTime Conferencing and QuickTime Streaming technologies. At Apple, he built iChat AV and the iSight camera, as well as Dashboard for MacOS. He went on to join the small, ragtag group charged with creating the iPhone, then left for Palm to co-invent webOS as VP of Applications and Platforms. He is currently a founder and CEO of Quake Labs, which is building a new platform called Eightly (www.eightly.com) which enables regular people to create and publish an entirely new kind of content for mobile devices.
David J. Peterson is a writer and language creator. He created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO’s Game of Thrones, and helped to found the Language Creation Society. He currently works as an alien language and culture consultant on the Syfy original series Defiance. He’s also working on the Syfy original series Dominion. David is also the author of The Art of Language Invention to be published by Penguin Books in 2015.
Demetrious Johnson is an American mixed martial artist. He is the first and current UFC Flyweight Champion.
In his day job, Ed Gavagan is the owner of PraxisNYC, a design/build firm practicing across a broad spectrum but specializing in boutique residences. Ed creates homes and furniture for fancy people and humble folk the world over. He aims to produce architecture of sustainability, habitability, durability and beauty.
Eric Weinstein is a Mathematician, Economist, and a frequent public speaker on a variety of subjects within the sciences. Currently, he is the managing director of Thiel Capital and holds a Visiting Position at Oxford University in the Mathematical Institute.
Fred Mossler founded the Merchandising Team at Zappos.com, and is focused on the revitalization efforts of Downtown Las Vegas with the Downtown Project.
In April, Isaiah announced he would be entering the 2014 NBA Draft. However, in June it was announced that he had been diagnosed with career-ending Marfan syndrome.
Jill Vialet has worked for more than 25 years in the nonprofit sector, during which she has focused her entrepreneurial skills on founding and growing two successful nonprofit organizations. In 1996, Vialet launched Playworks with two schools in Berkeley, California. Currently the organization brings play and physical activities to children across the country, with offices in 23 cities. During the 2014-15 school year Playworks will serve over 600,000 students through direct and training services, reaching more than 1500 schools and youth-serving organizations.
Joy Sun serves as GiveDirectly’s Domestic Chief Operating Officer. She started her career by pursuing her passion for international development, then left for the private sector after becoming deeply skeptical about the impact of most of the development programs she observed during years spent working and living in Africa.
Justin is known best for his recent “manternity” photo shoot turned viral. After reenacting the classic maternity poses, his photos have been seen by millions of people all around the world. His photos were featured on Good Morning America, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, CNN, People, MTV, Yahoo, and Buzzfeed to name a few.
Named by Oprah as a thought leader for the next generation and one of Inc.’s 500 fastest growing companies of 2014, Marie’s mission is to help you realize your greatest potential and use your gifts to change the world. She’s the creator of the award-winning show MarieTV, founder of B-School and has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Fast Company, among others.
Mel & Patricia Ziegler are the Founders of Banana Republic, and the Republic of Tea, and have written several non-fiction books.
Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR’s Arts Desk.
Twice a week, Las Vegas comedians Matt Donnelly and Paul Mattingly take on the news and issues of the day/week and end each episode debating a Jock vs. Nerd issue of the week/century. Matt Donnelly, co host on Penn Jillette’s “Penn’s Sunday School” podcast, and Paul Mattingly, co-host of the “Geek Shock” and “The Ugly Couch Show” podcasts combine to form a Voltron of hilarity. So in a drastic stretch of the imagination- this podcast is a Las Vegas Super Podcast.
Ric Elias is the CEO and co-founder of Red Ventures, a marketing and sales powerhouse for some of the largest brands across North America.
After an attack on her husband, Ed Gavagan, she became a public defender. She is currently practices law at the Legal Aid Society in one of the busiest and most challenging jurisdictions in the country – New York County.
With nearly 25 years of experience making women look and feel beautiful, internationally renowned photographer Sue Bryce has changed the face of glamour photography. After years of sharing stories and experiences photographing over 5000 Women. A powerful speaker Sue shares the depth and emotion in the journey of seeing and accepting yourself valuing who you are and the vulnerability of being in front of the camera and loving all that you are.
Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos and is responsible for the creation of the Downtown Project in Las Vegas, and more notably, the investor in Freak'n Genius. :)
