Kiera Alderette

associate creative director/art director

Mullen

Kiera Alderette is an associate creative director/art director with Mullen, an ad agency in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Born into a family of artists and exposed to illustration at an early age, she loved to draw and paint and attended the University of Pittsburgh as well as the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. At Mullen, Alderette is responsible for creative concepts and art direction for a range of clients, from Pennsylvania Tourism, Point Park University and Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield to PPG Industries and Pennsylvania Economic Development. Kiera took her first step in advertising through the doors of Ketchum where she worked for seven years. Her Point Park Playhouse work has been recognized in Communication A¬¬¬rts, Print and the Society of Illustrators.

Paul Buckley

vice president executive art director

Penguin Group (USA)

Paul Buckley is a vice president executive art director of New York-based Penguin Group (USA). Attending on an illustration scholar-ship, Paul received a BA from School of Visual Arts. He now focuses solely on design ¬¬and has been designing and art directing at Penguin since 1989. He oversees an in-house staff of 11 full-time employees, 5 trade imprints and roughly 600 covers and jackets per year. His work, and that of his staff, takes frequent awards and can be seen in many articles and annuals. Raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Buckley also professionally breeds rare and exotic boas and pythons. He currently resides in Brooklyn with his pub-lishing art director wife Ingsu, their dog Sam and a few nervous neighbors.

Vivienne Flesher

Illustrator

Vivienne Flesher is an illustrator based in San Francisco, California. Flesher has produced work for clients as diverse as the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Starbucks, KQED-TV and Shiseido. She has illustrated three children’s books, and will be publishing a fourth that she has written and photographed. Several of her posters can be found in the Permanent Col-lection of the Library of Congress and recently she illustrated the 2005 Love Stamp for the United States Postal Service. Vivienne grew up on Long Island and attended Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. Besides her commercial work, Ms. Flesher frequently creates for private collectors and has shown work throughout Europe, Asia and the U.S.

Nick Jehlen

art director

Progressive Magazine

Nick Jehlen, an art director, designer and writer from Somerville, Massachusetts, has been the art director at the Progressive magazine in Madison, Wisconsin, since 1999. Prior to that, he was the art director at Boston Review and an interactive designer at WGBH in Boston. Since 1992, Nick has worked for a wide variety of political and nonprofit groups. Clients include WGBH Boston, Action for Community and Environment, Corey McPherson & Nash and South End Press. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts, How and Print, as well as the Society of Publication Designers.

Stephen Zhang

Vice president, image director

Fossil

Stephen Zhang is a vice president, image director of Fossil in Richardson, Texas. On one hand, he is responsible to strategize the brand evolution and to maintain its cohesive-ness. On the other hand, he leads the Fossil Image Department with over 30 designers. A native Chinese and the son of an artist father, Stephen got his BFA in China and MFA in communication design from University of North Texas. He taught design at Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in China before moving to the United States. After his daughters go to bed and before his last drop of energy drains, Stephen man-ages to work on his paintings. His articles and work have appeared in books and magazines in the U.S., Japan and China.