Event Programming Committee

The Event Programming Committee conceives and executes creative, business and environmentally focused events that are relevant to our members, colleagues, chapter partners, the businesses we serve as professionals and the culture of our city. Our events create value for AIGA LA and help build community. The Programming Board, Programming Director, Event Producers, Event Chairs and Event Coordinators work together to manage event content and identify program formats, venues, speakers and exhibits. We manage catering, AV, invitations and other needs within budget. The Committee is open to any members who are interested in volunteering.

Marc Posch, Creative Director MPD/LA
Business Matters Chair
Swiss-born Marc Posch founded the Marc Posch Design Office in Munich/Germany. Under his leadership, the company developed a reputation for innovative thinking and design that helped his clients grow. Working with companies such as Apple, BMW, Softlab AG, and Tebis AG. In 2000, Marc relocated to Southern California, focusing on building his brand consultancy by sharing his philosophy of delivering a perspective of not just aesthetics, but economics and usage too. He believes that great design should not only disrupts but also connect in the evolving landscape of our design world.

Arturo Perez
Business Matters Chair
Arturo Perez is the founder and CEO of Kluge Interactive, an LA digital design agency that is at the forefront of merging design with business strategy to create experiences that engage and excite users. Kluge’s clients include Deloitte, Call of Duty Endowment, Telesign, AdColony and the Department of Cultural Affairs. Prior to Kluge, Arturo worked for Growthink, a business consulting boutique. When he isn’t surfing, Arturo hosts Evenings at the Loft, a design speaking series, and is the Design Director for Silicon Beach Fest.

Geremy Mumenthaler
Design Engineer Chair, East Meets West Chair, Transform the Landscape Chair
Design engineer and employee 1 at the Noun Project. Bridging the design and development skill sets, he encourages a well rounded product team. As a new transplant to Los Angeles, Geremy is digging deep into the design and tech communities and innovating where the community needs it. Geremy has worked on national and global brands with the design practice Simple.Honest.Work. in both the private and public sectors. He also loves making furniture just as much as talking about design philosophy.

Yasmine Molavi
Design Evolution Chair
Yasmine is a digital product designer at Carbon Five and one half of The Genolavis. She’s had global experience working with brands in advertising, social media campaigns, digital product design, and brand strategy. Some of her most recent clients include Samsung Innovations Lab, P&G Beauty, Halston and Ten Barrel Brewery. The best part of design according to Yasmine is drawing really, really tiny things for mobile experiences.

Justin Genovese
Design Evolution Chair
Justin started his graphic design career interning at the distinguished studio of AdamsMorioka. Since then he has used his profession as a designer and art director to travel and work across the globe. After a stint in Melbourne, Australia at Whybin\TBWA and a sabbatical to learn the art of woodworking, he returned stateside. Justin currently works as a branding design consultant and shares duties with his wife as one half of The Genolavis.

Beth Wegner
Design For Good/Mini Design For Good Series Chair
Beth Wegner is a UX designer, teacher and strategist. She is a founding member of both UX thinkers and AB collective. While aesthetics and balance are important in design, she professes that designers are not artists, but problem solvers who need to listen to clients and users. Believing that if you have to read directions, it was not designed right, she utilizes early prototyping and user testing in her design process.

Stacy Messerschmidt
Design For Good/Mini Design For Good Series Chair
Currently I am an Art Director at a print publishing company in Torrance, CA. I love getting opportunities to work on creative projects that give me a chance to give back and apply my skills to a company in need. For over 20 years I have worked in the areas advertising, PR, running a design studio, publishing, fashion design and letterpress printing. I love design, the design process, learning new industries, helping others learn and grow and great collaboration. Other personal interests I have are welding, surfing and spending time with my family and friends over great food, wine and good music.

Matteo Saradini
Mini Film Festival: Type and Film Chair
Matteo Saradini is an Italian director and visual artist working out of Los Angeles, California. Born and raised in Northern Italy, he studied film critique and Greek and Latin Theatre at the University of Brescia, Italy. He soon tired of the theoretical studies and set out to self-finance his first feature film “Fear and Vengeance”, an epic gangster film inspired by Homer’s “Odyssey”. Saradini made his way to Rome in 2004 where he had the opportunity to produce, shoot and direct “Blood Chronicle”, a mockumentary inspired by Richard Brooks’ “In Cold Blood”.

Vanessa B. Dewey
Spark Series Chair
Vanessa B. Dewey is a native Vermonter, a Francophile, and a passionate single-origin coffee drinker. She is a quiet force to be reckoned with who is always looking for inspiration to craft the most effective story. Prior to her life in graphic design she was 2 semesters away from earning a degree in International Relations and French from American University. Always up for a challenge, she realized her true calling: graphic design. Vanessa has been in LA since 2004, is an art director at Mattel Inc., board member of Women of Mattel, and is co-founder of several Mattel internal creative groups. When she isn’t trying to connect people creatively, you can find her fulfilling her passion of foreign travel or in her hood, DTLA, with her husband and two beagles, Loretta and Theodore.

Jayme Rosenstock
Speaker Series Chair
Jayme is an outgoing and energetic, graphic designer. Currently, she works at Astek Wallcovering where she makes clients’ wallpaper dreams come to life. She is thrilled to be a part of AIGA’s Speaker Series and plan events for designers in the LA community. When she’s not in front of her computer, you can find her cheering on the Michigan Wolverines, her alma mater, trying fitness classes and exploring LA’s new restaurants.

Amy Nadeen Wilson
Speaker Series Chair
Amy is a multidisciplinary graphic designer and illustrator who has created projects for a diverse range of clients in the private and public sector. Her education and professional background in strategic communications has played an important role in her understanding of how messages are shared through design and in turn how innovative modes of communication can be used to enhance the effectiveness of design.

James Hsu
Studio Tour Series Chair
James Hsu wanted to become a cat when he grew up. When that dream proved to not be lucrative he began pursuing a career in design. With his background in graphic design, marketing, and art history he’s led design efforts for teams like Disney, Ubisoft, and Live Nation. He specializes in interactive design, and user experience. His time off is spent day dreaming about life as a cat, and surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Aaron Gleen
Aaron is a proper tea-drinking, music-blogging, photo-taking, illustrating, and passionate designer. You can catch him around town armed with his point-and-shoot and headphones in his ears. When Aaron is not out soaking up the creative LA energy, he’s an Art Director at the USC Design Studio. In addition to the 9-to-5, he freelances and somehow manages to get a few hours of sleep here and there. Aaron has been an AIGA member since 2008, becoming more and more an active member until taking on his current role as Assistant Programming Chair, where he is excited to help guide the organization to new heights.

Alessandra Cruz
Regrettably born into the wrong era and wrong side of the Atlantic to be recruited into Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Alessandra Cruz hails instead from Miami, FL. While at Ringling College of Art + Design, she was an AIGA student member who was also heavily involved with volunteerism on campus. This desire to do good in a creative environment was packed in her carry-on bag along with her totally-not-sarcastic sense of humor (Warning: sarcasm) when she made the big switch to the West Coast. Shortly after attending her first AIGA LA Event Programming meeting, she was inspired to become more directly involved not only through volunteering at AIGA events, but through eventually producing her own public service (HEART) projects. As a Junior Designer, she currently works at Studio Fuse in Pasadena.

Eric Martinez
As a child, Eric cut his creative teeth concocting Trans-Am’s and X-Wing fighters out of his bristle blocks. Having noticed his imagination run amuck, his parents thought better and decided to channel his creativity into drawing and painting classes. Eric has since enjoyed helping clients like Walt Disney Records, Mattel, Lionsgate, Sapient and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles create solutions that, on good days, appeared on the pages of HOW, Communication Arts, Print, ID Magazine and Creativity. Today, he hides under the name Ambidextrous Studio in Whittier, California.

Jamie Thalman
A few things that explain Jamie: summers spent on a working Amish farm, growing up with a Nikon F-Series camera (his mom’s), and Sunday pickup soccer (all love, little skill). Consumed by social entrepreneurship and all things design, Jamie is a strong proponent of human-centered design and lean startup methodology. His work takes the form of film and still imagery, a little digital interaction, and hopefully more built environment.

Janette Jackson
Janette Jackson is a Los Angeles native and spent her college years in Portland, OR. After helping launch the AIGA Portland Student Chapter at The Art Institute of Portland, she was able to grow the student group and helped build a student-run magazine called “Factory” acting as Project Manager. These experiences ultimately brought her back to Los Angeles where she continues her endeavor as a designer, also becoming involved with AIGA Los Angeles as a volunteer. She spends her free time blogging about AIGA events, design, and her inspiration.

Jenn de la Fuente
Jenn is a self-described WordPress ninja, web designer, geek and general goofball. She has run her own business, Rosebud Designs, since 2009 and has worked with a variety of design shops, agencies, small businesses, non-profits and good people. She has also taught workshops on web design and WordPress, and critiqued student portfolios. Jenn is a USC graduate and Angeleno at heart. Besides art, design and geekery, Jenn’s other passion is sports—she spent 10 years in sports journalism before becoming a full-time designer.

Samantha Cabrera
Samantha knew she would be in a creative field since the age of five when she noticed that she could draw cats and dragons better than the average bear. It was not until high school, however, that she discovered what graphic design was when mistakenly placed in Yearbook instead of Journalism. Dreams of being a journalist/actress were quickly thrown aside for dreams of being a designer. Today, she mixes both disciplines to create experiences out of packaging, environmental, interactive, and anything she can lay her hands on.