BEAU OYLER is a California native and has lived in the Bay Area for 10 years with his wife and kids. He graduated from the School of Industrial Design at the Academy of Art University in 2005. Before graduation, he worked as designer for Williams-Sonoma, where he designed multiple products that came into production and sold nationwide in Williams-Sonoma stores, some of which are still available today, seven years later! Upon graduation, Beau sought an agency opportunity with NewDealDesign and became their seventh designer. At New Deal, Beau became an integral team member and Lead Designer, developing products for brands like Dell, Nokia, Fujitsu, Verizon, Timbuk2 and Netgear. In 2008, he partnered with Jared Aller to form Enlisted Design. Enlisted has become a pioneer in collaborative design, inviting their clients into their open studio for all-day design sessions, where the client becomes a member of the design team! Enlisted Design’s clients include, Netgear, Nestlé, Clorox, Intuit, Merrick and Urbio. He’s won many design awards and has successfully launched the Urbio brand into worldwide recognition.
BRAD CARRICK is the owner and founder of SOLZ, Inc., and the business developer for SFFAMA. SOLZ is a San Francisco brand founded in 2011 to provide uniquely fashionable products that actually enhance the enjoyment of an active, leisurely lifestyle. They call this “functional fashion.” SOLZshoes were launched at the beginning of the year and are the ultra-lightweight, flexible casual shoes that are quickly becoming an essential element of any active lifestyle wardrobe. Now, SOLZ is proud to unveil their newest functional fashion product, “SOLZbag”, a solar-powered backpack that functions as a personal portable power station perfect for charging iPhones, iPads and almost any other small electronics. Brad will speak about how they designed, raised the money for, promoted and are now launching SOLZbag using Apple products.
Brad graduated from Colgate University with B.A. in International Relations, Economics and Asian Studies. He also holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an MBA from IE Business School in Spain. Having lived on four different continents, his inability to sit still made SOLZ a necessity – and now a reality.
DAVID TAKEUCHI. ‘True perspective is the ability to see through eyes other than your own.’ Armed with the ability to understand a Client’s business and brand objectives from the vantage point of the Customer, David Takeuchi has been an authority and thought-leader in transforming the ‘Customer Experience’. As a Founding Partner of Bedrock Consultants, David has used the disciplines of brand strategy and design to provide the insights and business models that increase revenue growth and improve margins for enterprises in highly competitive markets.
David’s foundation on the Customer is rooted in both the creative side and business side. In that intersection, he zeros in on the innovative and highly strategic value propositions that are at the core of the customer’s experience. In the case of one of the largest healthcare providers in the nation, his work focusing on the Member’s experience at the regional level became a catalyst for their facilities care delivery model, an integral, ‘rubber meets the road’ component in their branded environments.
LORRAINE SANDERS is a San Francisco-based journalist, blogger, media consultant and author of the San Francisco Chronicle Style Bytes column. She also regularly covers fashion for the newspaper and its SF Unzipped blog. She is founder of SF Indie Fashion (www.sfindiefashion.com), a web site and resource covering the San Francisco Bay Area’s independent fashion community, and Digital Style Digest (www.digitalstyledigest.com), a web site covering all things fashionable, stylish and tech-savvy. Her work has appeared in 7×7 magazine, NBC Bay Area, KQED, Daily Candy and many others. She teaches fashion blogging at Academy of Art University and consults with small businesses to hone their media, blogging and social media strategies. In 2010, she was selected as a news entrepreneurship fellow by the University of Southern California Knight Digital Media Center.
TOM DONNELLY, Principal of GNU Group. Tom’s 28 year career in environmental graphic design includes the design and management of many significant corporate and public sign programs in domestic and international venues. The last 13 years he has spent as President and Principal at Donnelly Design. Now Tom has merged with the GNU Group, where he will take the role of Principal, focused on the design and delivery of projects.
The GNU Group is an environmental graphic design firm, established with the goal of providing the highest quality of design and service available. Areas of focus include sign programs for corporate, public, medical and other environments, identity systems and sign guidelines, and content development to aid in wayfinding and information distribution.The firm brings over three decades of experience designing graphics for a broad range of project types including airports, corporate campuses, retail, commercial and residential developments, museums, parking garages, civic centers, historic districts and medical centers. Projects range in scope from single, key sign elements to extensive systems of signs and graphics implemented in phases over several years time.GNU Group’s main goal is to provide the right design solution for each client, not to design projects which necessarily show well in design competitions. We strive to design unique yet practical solutions which project identity, clearly present information and are easy to maintain and update.
Apple Talk Series is a program of guest lecturers curated by Owen Geronimo, Founder of San Francisco Fashion and Merchants Alliance, Inc. & Fashion+TechSF and sponsored by Apple San Francisco. The program features art, design, fashion and tech industry professionals who use Apple products in a professional capacity or as part of their daily business operations. Apple Talk Series runs each year in conjunction with San Francisco Fashion Week and San Francisco Design Week.
