The VC Lecture Series is put on by the Visual Communication program here at NAU every spring, sponsored and paid for by the School of Communication and Visual Communication course fees. It is open to the Northern Arizona design community, and AIGA members from across the state who want to join us.

The professional and educational design industry (graphic design, visual communication, web design, interaction design) is constantly changing and evolving, and at the same time, the foundation principles of design can still be applied to any work regardless of the media or deliverable or can they?

Join us in a panel discussion that brings together Arizona design professionals, educators and NAU alumni as they share and sort out their thoughts on design, how it's evolved and what we can learn from the past in order to shape the future. 

Panelists
Scott Hathcock
Tom Knights
Nick Kraft
Brock Lefferts
Stephanie McCarthy
Tommy O’Connor

Moderator 
William Culpepper

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Scott Hathcock 
Scott is a recovering 13 year entertainment executive from Los Angeles, California. Following his stint in entertainment, he moved into the world of digital and worked for a couple of startups in advertising technologies, Metadata services, content management systems, interactive content, and UI/UX. Throughout his career, branding and brand relevance has remained at the center. Today, Scott serves as the Vice President for the Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce. He is the co-founder of the Flagstaff Tech Track and driver of the Chamber’s Ready.Set(){Code}, an initiative that introduces coding to youth across Northern Arizona. 

www.flagstaffchamber.com

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Tom Knights 
Tom is Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication from Northern Arizona University. He retired as Director of the School of Communication in 2005. Tom has designed and developed over 1,000 creative and communicative works over his career including numerous graphic designs and paintings. In addition to developing the visual communication program at NAU in 1978, he has received awards from the Type Director's Club of New York, the Phoenix Prisma Awards show and Bookbuilders West competition. Tom's current acrylic paintings explore colors, textures and distressed low relief in abstracted and ambiguous forms which are designed to be viewed in small, intimate spaces.

www.nau.edu/sbs/communication

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Nick Kraft
Nick currently works in digital communications for Northern Arizona University, recruiting students online and via email. He ran his own web design firm, Indigo8 Internet, for over 15 years and began his career in magazine circulation. Nick has worked with personal computers since 1985 and on websites since 1996. He holds a Bachelors from Lewis and Clark College, studied photography at Brooks Institute, and received his Master’s in creative writing from NAU. 

www.nau.edu/emsa
www.indigo8.com

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Brock Lefferts
Brock is a photographer, graphic designer, musician and maker of things. Currently he is the Brand and Design Manager at WebPT, a Phoenix based web-based electronic medical record and management service. Creation is his passion. Everything in his life revolves around a love for taking ideas and bringing them to life. Understanding how great design works and showing others the importance of well thought out, beautiful design—is what motivates him the most. Brock has been pursuing design and photography for over 10 years and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in both graphic design and computer imaging from Northern Arizona University in 2010. 

www.brocklefferts.com
www.webpt.com

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Stephanie McCarthy
Stephanie is currently the Creative Design Group Manager at the Northern Arizona University e-Learning Center. Her expertise is rooted in graphic design, print design, web design, branding/marketing, and media accessibility. In 2015, Stephanie was awarded the Resident’s Achievement Award for excelling in promoting a positive sense of community in the workplace and actively supporting the mission of Northern Arizona University. This is award considered the highest staff recognition from the NAU. When she is not acting as a mentor and art director for the creative design staff and student designers at NAU, she can be found working with the Flagstaff Biking Organization providing marketing, promotions & website volunteer. Stephanie gets a kick out of riding her motorcycles and pedal bikes while practicing general happiness in life!

www.nau.edu/elearning
instagram.com/stephmoto

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Tommy O'Connor 
Tommy is a self-taught graphic designer with 15 years of professional experience. His career has taken many forms: from freelance to big design agencies, web banner monkey to running a marketing department with a million dollar annual budget. These days he and his wife, Danielle, run the Flagstaff based branding agency We Are William, and have recently started a digital user interface studio called Made with Math. Over the last few years they've been fortunate to run design projects for national clients such as Adobe, Cox Communications, GE Healthcare, among others.

www.wearewilliam.com
www.madewithmath.com

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William Culpepper
William has worked on a variety of visual communication projects for both public and private organizations for past 15 years. His practice has encompassed all facets of the design profession, from typesetting at the local newspaper to acting as creative director for national campaigns. William is currently the Online Associate Director in the School of Graphic Design at the Academy of Art University. In his current capacity at the Academy, he manages the organization and quality of online class content, and in addition facilitates learning and skills acquisition in undergraduate and graduate courses. He received his BFA from Montana State University and his MFA at the Academy of Art University. His thesis project, “Grafik Intervention: Sparking Urban Revitalization Efforts through Graphic Design,” has become an active point of reference for the design community and its efforts to promote “Design for Good.” Prior to arriving at Academy of Art University, William has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, Northern Arizona University and Ferris State University. 

www.academyart.edu
www.williamculpepper.com