From coast to coast, sea to shining sea, America’s a big place with a lot of designers.
And evaluating them all as one big group seems to do a disservice to the design. The Print Regional Design Awards is a competition that encourages nuance and respects regional variations. Each year for the past 38 years, we take into account the Southern subtleties or the Midwest sensibilities, and our judges choose the best designs from each region. The results are a snapshot in what’s hot, what works, and what inspires – from one end of the country to the other, from top to bottom.
Our judges this year are at the top of their games.
As experts, tastemakers, and industry leaders, our judges are esteemed in their fields. Their decisions will grant Regional Design Awards winners a taste of glory and act as a collection of the best the U.S. has to offer.
Here, we’ll meet the judges. (The Regional Design Awards are closed.)
Get Acquainted with Print’s Regional Design Award Judges:
South: Sam Eckersley
Sam Eckersley is creative director and co-founder of RED Partners, developing brand identity systems and campaigns for a broad range of clients including the National Football League, CNN, Google, PBS, Apollo Theater, Guggenheim, Nike, and American Ballet Theatre.
His work has won awards from AIGA, Art Directors Club, FPO, CMYK and Print, as well as Judge’s Pick at the Type Directors Club. He’s currently serving as Co-President of AIGA-Atlanta, and an adjunct professor at Portfolio Center in Atlanta, where he lives with his wife Courtney and their two kids, Henry and Linnea.
Far West: Satoru Nihei
Satoru Nihei is a graphic designer born and raised in Fukushima, Japan and practicing in the United States. Nihei’s work explores personal and emotional life experiences through typographic form and design. His work addresses emotional human presence in an expressive, contemplative, whimsical and often a playful manner, evoking a keen sense of the human psyche.
Nihei’s work has been included in national and international collections and exhibitions such as Graphic Matters, Golden Bee/Moscow Global Biennale of Graphic Design 3sec.gallery in Breda, the Netherlands, Trnava Poster Triennial in Slovakia, and Shenzhen International Poster Festival.
Southwest: Courtney Gooch
Courtney Gooch is an independent designer based in New York. She makes identities, books, websites, packaging, and environmental graphics. She was previously the associate partner on Paula Scher’s team at Pentagram, and her client work includes projects for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Google, and Madison Square Park.
Her work has been featured by Fast Company, Lonely Planet, and Wired, and she’s an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, teaching senior portfolio and typography classes.
Midwest: Carly Ayres
Carly Ayres is a writer, creative director, and previously co-founder of HAWRAF, an interactive design and technology design studio engaging people in new & interesting ways.
From sound-reactive identities to mirrored selfie posters, HAWRAF worked to help brands have better conversations. Before HAWRAF, Carly worked humanizing AI and evolving the Google logo. She’s given voices to Fortune 500 companies & chatbots alike and writes on design and ethics.
East: Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design, opening Studio A in 1988. Since then, his studio has won awards of excellence in design from local, national and international design institutions including AIGA, Print, Communication Arts and Graphis. Alcalá is an adjunct faculty member of Maryland Institute College of Art’s MFA in graphic design and is also responsible for the design of U.S. postage stamps as an art director for the United States Postal Service.
In 2011, Alcalá was nominated for two National Design Awards from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. His work is represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
New York City: Eric Friedensohn
Eric Friedensohn, AKA Efdot, makes custom art murals and installations for mission-driven companies around the world. Eric currently leads the Art & Graphics team for WeWork Latin America. The team creates meaningful and unexpected experiences to connect and inspire their members and anyone who enters the spaces.
Outside of WeWork, Eric has a boutique design business, Efdot Studio, where he has worked with startups and established clients such as Mozilla, Blick Art Materials and The Food Network. He currently lives in Brooklyn and frequently travels between the US and Latin America for projects.
Student: Anne Jordan
Anne Jordan is a graphic designer specializing in book cover design for academic and trade publishers. Her work explores the intersection of typography and materials, and in 2015, Anne was named a New Visual Artist (15 Artists Under 30) by Print Magazine.
Anne often collaborates with her husband, designer Mitch Goldstein, from their home-studio in Rochester, New York. Their collaborative work has been recognized by AIGA 50 Books 50 Covers, Communication Arts, The STA 100, and The Type Directors Club.
The Regional Design Awards are closed.