The Consult

The Consult – Light the Fuse on your Portfolio

At this AIGA Austin event, speakers from different creative fields bring their knowledge and passion together for an incendiary speaking event. Join us to hear what the industry wants to see in your work and how to show it. This is your opportunity to get that spark that sets off your explosive portfolio.

What is The Consult? | 

The Consult is a panel and mentoring event intended to give students the inside scoop on best practices for assembling a portfolio to compete in the creative market today. This event will feature a discussion panel of speakers who have made their way in their field. This event is intended to inform your understanding of your specific discipline and expand your knowledge of the industry as a whole so that you can see how it fits together. This will encapsulate current trends, best online resources, portfolio content, and more.

10:00am | Registration

10:15am | Panel Discussion

11:30am | Lunch Break

12:00pm | Breakout Sessions with Panelists | Prep with a Pro

1:00pm | Everything they Didn’t teach you in School

After the panel discussion, there will be time for one-on-one conversations and advice as each professional leads a solo discussion as to how you can prepare yourself for their specific field.

There is a saying “you don’t know what you don’t know.” It’s time for you to get informed so that you can build the portfolio that ignites your career.

The Panelists | 

Michelle Oros | 

"I'm a designer and art director in Austin. And I've been lucky enough over the course of my career to create everything from complete identity systems to integrated  and ad campaigns for clients spanning jewelry, politics, tech, ice cream and more. I think that means I can add a check mark in the "well-rounded" column of my resume."

Duncan Hopkins | 

Duncan is currently the Senior Design Team Lead for the ESS Verse team in the Austin IBM Design Studio,  With his background in traditional advertising art direction, he has spent the last 20 years immersed in interactive design including his own design agency and creative director at several tech start-ups. He was previously the UX Design Director for Growth Acceleration Partners.

twitter @duncanistan

Russell Toynes | 

Russell Toynes is a native Texan and professional art director, designer, educator and amateur doodler. As an in-house art director at Dell Inc., Russell leads creative teams in developing thoughtful and creative design solutions that define and govern the strategic vision of Dell’s global brand. Russell is also currently an adjunct professor at Austin Community College teaching portfolio development. In his free time, Russell focuses on the important things in life – family, friends and food– and does whatever he can to maintain his “cool dad” status with his daughter.

Will Chau | 

Over his career, Will has created award-winning work for clients such as BMW, Southwest Airlines,KOHLER and Kia Motors, among many others. His work has been featured in The One Show,Communication Arts, Cannes, Graphis Advertising, Graphis Poster, National Addys, and The London International Automotive Awards. Will has been a featured writer for The Huffington Post, as well as a speaker/panelist at The Academy of Art in SF, The One Club in NY, AIGA Austin, St. Edwards University and The McCombs School of Business at University of Texas. A proponent of diversity in advertising, he was nominated in 2015 for the “Change Agent” Award by The Adcolor Conference.

Marc English | 

Marc English has been balancing practice and theory since long before you were born, most likely. For the last 8+ years he has been a professor in the Academy of Art University/San Francisco's graduate and undergraduate programs. Teaching online, his students have been not only all ages, but from all over the United States, as well as in India, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Russia, Finland, Indonesia, Thailand, and more. Over the past twenty-five years English has also taught classes at the Universidad de Monterrery, Mexico, at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, the Savannah College of Art and Design, and a few schools in Texas. Author of Designing Identity: Graphic Design as a Business Strategy, English's practice has had clients from a variety of corporate and institutional clients in the U.S., France, Vietnam, and Malawi, with projects as diverse as packaging for the Criterion Collection and Whole Foods Market, to branding for the University of Texas School of Architecture and the Austin Film Society. His work has won numerous awards and is in collections in Germany and Mexico.

Price: FREE but you must register in order to attend. Registration will close on Wednesday, November 11.


When & Where
Sat, Nov 14, 2015 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM CST
St. Edward's University: Fine Arts Department
3001 South Congress Avenue
Austin, TX 78704