Event Detail More Events

The Future is Friday with Firebelly Founder Dawn Hancock

The kickoff of a new female-forward talk series

Jun 22
  • June 22
  • 7:45 AM – 9:00 AM
  • Leo Burnett

AIGA Chicago is launching a new talk series about women: THE FUTURE IS FRIDAY.

To kick off this event, Alisa Wolfson and Dawn Hancock talk design, friendship, and community.

Dawn Hancock
Founder & Managing Director of Firebelly
Dawn is a troublemaker, a bleeding heart, a designer by trade and a do-gooder by choice. Two things she likes: ideas and people. She’s been known to put them together in a room, just to see what happens.

She started Firebelly in 1999 with a simple mission: Good Design for Good Reason™. Since then, she’s been diligent about hiring passionate overachievers, seeking out fearless allies and taking on projects with the potential to uplift communities and maybe even change the world.

While she’s kept the team intentionally small, Dawn's kept hustling to expand Firebelly’s reach and impact. In the studio alone, she's established and housed a community nonprofit, a start-up incubator and a 10-day design bootcamp. She also co-founded Typeforce, an annual exhibit and celebration of Chicago's type community, in partnership with Public Media Institute. And then there's the Grant for Good, started in 2003, which provides a full year of free, comprehensive design services to a local nonprofit.

She’s hyperactive beyond the studio as well, preaching the gospel of good design in venues near and far. She’s spoken at the School of Visual Arts and the Type Director’s Club, appeared as a guest on the Design Matters podcast and gotten vulnerable on the triumphs and tribulations of social impact design in print and in person for audiences big and small. Named one of Fast Company’s 11 Most Generous Designers, Dawn leads with love, keeps a close eye on her people and believes that together, we will create a better world, one good idea at a time.

Alisa Wolfson
EVP Head of Design at Leo Burnett, Chicago 

As a leader in the agency’s U.S. design practice, Alisa oversees brand extension and campaign visual identity for Samsung, Kelloggs, P&G and many of the agency’s cultural and socially conscious clients.

Her career at Burnett began in 2009, when she founded the Department of Design—a group that she has grown from a team of four to eighteen designers. She is an advocate for collaboration and design excellence within the agency and community, championing design thinking as a method for transforming products, services, processes and strategy.

Her work has been recognized by notable industry awards, including the inaugural D&AD White Pencil, Best in Show at the One Show Design, and the first-ever Gold Pencil awarded to Design for the Greater Good. She has been named one of 30 “Women to Watch” by Ad Age Magazine.

Alisa is an active part of the Chicago design and cultural scene. She is the President Emeritus of the AIGA Chicago and the Design Director at Lampo, a nonprofit organization that presents experimental sound art. Alisa is also a mentor, volunteer and mom.

Agenda
7:45 AM — Mix, mingle, and drink coffee
8 AM — Presentation

Ticket Pricing
$5 Student Members
$5 AIGA Members 
$10 Non-Members 

More Information