20 Influential Creatives All Design Students Should Know in 2018

Every great designer has been inspired by another. So if you’re keen on a creative career in graphic design, you’ll need to know who the leaders are. Although Fred Woodward, Alan Fletcher, Bob Gill and Paul Scher might be the obvious ones to research, at Shillington, we think it’s also good to draw inspiration from the latest talent.

Whether you’re moved by the Mavericks that challenge the norm or designers with their own distinctive flair, here’s an expert’s view, a ‘who’s who’ that every student and novice graphic designer should know.

1. Kati Forner

Pictured: book design for Victoria Will

Kati Forner is a Los Angeles based designer with over 12 years’ experience in print, digital design and production. She began her professional career in Chicago, working with a number of innovative agencies. Five years ago, she launched her own creative studio in LA where they’ve since developed comprehensive identities for beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands. Her style is minimalist and elegant, and we especially love her recent editorial design for Victoria Will.

Pictured: book design for Victoria Will

2. Marto Veludo

Currently working in Amsterdam, Marto Veludo is inspired by pop culture, folk art, pound shops and Tumblr, fascinated by inventions, colour, movement and compositions. Whether in the digital realm or on a three-dimensional scale, she combines different disciplines and mediums to build engaging experiences. Clients include Adidas, Reebok, LEGO and Vice. A highlight recent project was her redesign for the “all the time” Staples primary school black book, commissioned by Staples and Departamento.com.

Pictured: Marto Veludo’s design for Staples and Departamento.com

3. Kate Moross

Kate Moross is an art director, illustrator and graphic designer. Her work spans artistic direction, moving imagery, typography and illustration. In 2012, she founded Studio Moross, a London-based multidisciplinary design company as an expansion upon her own work and a way to collaborate with other creatives. We love her recent live mural at Uniqlo’s flagship store on London’s Oxford Street.

Pictured: A recent live mural at Uniqlo’s flagship London store by Kate Moross

4. Alex Trochut

Born in Barcelona, Alex Trochut established his own design studio in his home city before relocating to New York. Through his design, illustration and typographic practice he has developed an expressive visual style that has attracted the attention of clients such as Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple. He recently lectured at Shillington in New York too. Expect to see a lot more of Alex on the scene.

Pictured: Alex Trochut for Coca-Cola

5. Gabby Lord

Gabby Lord is an Australian designer and art director, living in Berlin. Passionate about design for both print and screen, she works on a diverse range of projects for brands such as Jetstar, Qantas and Red Bull Music Academy. Aside from her work, she also spends a lot of time writing a weekly newsletter called OMGLORD – one we’d highly recommend subscribing to.

Pictured: Gabby Lord’s work for Mahlo Brunch Bar

6. Leta Sobierajski

Leta Sobierajski is an independent designer and art director based in New York City combining traditional graphic design elements with photography, art, and styling to create utterly unique visuals. Her work is incredibly diverse, ranging from conventional identities to brilliantly bizarre compositions. As of October 2016, Leta began a design studio with her husband and collaborator, Wade Jeffree, in which they focus their unusual eye on projects ranging from branding, art direction, installation, to video. Her Instagram feed alone is worth a follow.

Pictured: Leta Sobierajski’s “You Are Going To Be Fine” for ROW DTLA

7. Ben J. Crick

Originally from Australia, Ben J. Crick is now based in New York City, working on everything from small passion projects to branding and identity systems for brands as big as Spotify and Coca-Cola. Design Week named his work with Collins for Spotify as some of the most globally defining to date.

Pictured: Ben J. Crick’s work with Collins for Spotify

8. Annie Atkins

Annie Atkins specialises in graphics for filmmaking, which means that she makes any graphic pieces outlined by a period film script – like postage stamps and banknotes to help create Wes Anderson’s fictional State of Zubrowka; or shopfront signs and fake passports for Steven Spielberg’s New York.

Pictured: Work by Annie Atkins for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel

9. Will Bryant

Based in Austin, Texas, Will Bryant‘s work is full of humour, fun and positivity. With clients ranging from Nickelodeon, Dropbox and Google, his illustrations and installations are bursting with colour. We loved his limited edition artist series for Shacksbury Cider.

Pictured: Will Bryant’s limited edition artist series for Shacksbury Cider

10. Frank Chimero

Frank Chimero is a designer, illustrator, and author working as a visual partner across branding, publication, and digital projects. Aside from recognition from Print Magazine and The New Yorker, in 2012, he wrote and published The Shape of Design, a little, philosophical handbook about making things for other people. The book is used in design classrooms around the world, but its message has found a home in all kinds of creative disciplines, from chefs to woodworkers.

Pictured: Frank Chimero’s work for Abstract

11. Ben Grandgenett

Ben Grandgenett is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer and art director, born and raised in Nebraska. He is currently the Deputy Art Director at The New York Times Magazine and recently guest lectured at Shillington New York.

Pictured: Ben Grandgenett’s recent work for The New York Times Magazine

12. Morag Myerscough

Morag Myerscough is the award-winning brains behind Studio Myerscough, which she founded in 1993, and one of the UK’s most prolific designers. Combining traditional graphic design and typography with craft, her work is always bold and eclectic, often eccentric. She has designed many exhibits for London’s Design Museum, including its only permanent one.

Pictured: Morag Myerscough’s installation for the Design Museum. Photography © Gareth Gardner

13. Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd is an award-winning graphic designer and writer based in New York. His groundbreaking book jacket designs for Alfred A. Knopf are most notable. And he’s worked with hundreds of other writers, including John Updike, Katharine Hepburn, Cormac McCarthy, Henry Louis Gates Jr., James Ellroy, Karen Russell, Michael Crichton, David Sedaris, Sharon Olds, Orhan Pamuk, Paul Simon, Neil Gaiman, and Haruki Murakami. His first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, was a national bestseller. His most recent book, Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design is the first book to teach graphic design to children and has over 60,000 copies in print.

Pictured: Chip Kidd’s book, Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design

14. Llew Mejia

Llew Mejia is an illustrator skilled in hand-drawn illustration, pattern and print, packaging, branding, and computer-generated illustration. In his younger years, his family travelled back and forth between Mexico and the Southwestern United States. As a result, he is bilingual and has a unique perspective on American as well as Mexican culture. Clients include Apple, Google, Starbucks and Nike.

Pictured: Llew Mejia’s illustration work for Red Bull

15. Jessica Walsh

Jessica Walsh is a designer and art director working as a partner at NYC based design firm Sagmeister & Walsh. She lectures about design at creative conferences and universities internationally. She teaches design and typography at The School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her work has won numerous awards and her impressive client list features Jay-Z, Museum of Modern Art and The New York Times. We love her visual identity for Milly, the fashion brand founded by designer Michelle Smith.

Pictured: Jessica Walsh’s identity for Milly

16. Elana Schlenker

Elana Schlenker collaborates with brands of all sizes, specialising in visual identities, interactive work and printed matter. Select clients include The New Yorker, Princeton Architectural Press and Condé Nast. Aside from her commissioned projects, Elana publishes Gratuitous Type, an occasional magazine of graphic design featuring interviews and projects from leading creatives, and she runs Less Than 100, a travelling pop up shop dedicated to achieving gender wage parity.

Pictured: Reverberations exhibition catalogue design by Elana Schlenker

17. Lauren Hom

Hom Sweet Hom is the studio of Lauren Hom, a designer and letterer based in Detroit. Known for her bright colour palettes and playful letterforms, Lauren has created work for clients like Starbucks, Google and YouTube. And her work has been recognised by Communication Arts, the Type Directors Club, and the Webby Awards. Lauren is also the author of the popular blog and book Daily Dishonesty.

Pictured: Typography poster design by Lauren Hom

18. Jessica Hische

Jessica Hische is a lettering artist and author with a “tendency to overshare and a penchant for procrastiworking.” Currently based in San Francisco where she shares a studio with fellow lettering artist Erik Marinovich, she has just launched a new book entitled Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave in partnership with Penguin Workshop. We love her recent identity for Oddfellows, a design and animation studio based in San Francisco and Portland.

Pictured: Jessica Hische’s recent identity for Oddfellows

19. Timothy Goodman

Timothy Goodman is a designer, illustrator and author. His art and words have populated walls, buildings, packaging, cars, people, shoes, clothing, book jackets, magazine covers and galleries all over the world. Clients include Google, Samsung, Uniqlo and Netflix, to name just a few. His global collection of clothing with Uniqlo launched recently and he also finds the time to teach at SVA in New York City.

Pictured: Timothy Goodman’s street mural in Houston

20. Mike Kus

Mike Kus is a UK based designer, specialising in branding, graphic design, illustration and photography. He has a worldwide client roster and his work is often featured in design related publications. Mike is also a regular speaker at design and tech conferences. We loved his project for Getty Images where he designed a set of three posters exploring the design possibilities of combining imagery with graphic design and typography.

Pictured: Poster designs for Getty Images by Mike Kus

Are you inspired by these designers? Consider studying graphic design 3 months full-time or 9 months part-time at Shillington in New York, London, Manchester, Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane.