Headshot Lee Eldrige

Lee Eldridge

Designer, Educator, Researcher and Author

Lee Eldridge is a long-time creative industry professional whose work spans graphic design, publishing, digital media, production and emerging creative technologies.

Lee’s experience includes leading creative studio work for national and international clients and serving as Associate Editor of DesignEdge Canada. He now teaches design, digital media, creative production, UX/UI, 3D design and studio practice at TMU, while working on his PhD in Media and Design Innovation. His current research focuses on the intersection of design, technology and communications, with particular attention to how new creative tools can support ethical, practitioner-facing workflows without diminishing craft, judgement or originality.

Headshot Nu Goteh

Nu Goteh

Founder of Room for Magic

Nu is a designer, strategist and educator who envisions conditions for communities to thrive.

A recipient of the 2025 National Design Award (Emerging Designer), Nu is the Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Creative Director of Deem Journal and the Founder and Principal of ROOM FOR MAGIC. Nu is at the forefront of an emerging generation of designers who integrate design, culture, art, community and social practice. He has partnered with clients that include nonprofits such as the Art for Justice Fund, the Ford Foundation and the World Peace Foundation; cultural institutions such as the National Memorial for the Underground Railroad; and global brands like Nike and Google. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Wallpaper, Design Miami, Monocle, and The Architect’s Newspaper. Influenced by his Liberian heritage and passion for counter-culture, he presents keynotes globally on design as an invitation for communities to reclaim their futures.

Headshot Thomas Hull

Thomas Hull

Chair of Graphic Design at Savannah College of Art and Design

Prior to joining SCAD, the largest and most influential graphic design program in the US, Thomas Hull was Partner and Design Director of Rigsby Hull, a communications brand consultancy where he worked with a diverse range of Fortune 500 companies and organizations including Dell, Sappi Fine Papers, Thornton Tomasetti and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

His work is part of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s permanent collection, the Denver Art Museum and Columbia University. The New York Times’ art critic Steven Heller profiles Rigsby Hull’s work in his A Century of Design Milestones. And in each of its 40th, 50th and 60th Anniversary issues Communication Arts has cited Thomas’ work as among the most influential in American Graphic Design.

Headshot Elizabeth Goodspeed

Elizabeth Goodspeed

Designer, Writer & Educator

Elizabeth is the U.S. Editor-at-Large for It’s Nice That, where she writes a popular monthly column on graphic design.

Her writing on design history and visual culture has appeared in Fast Company, PORT, The Architect’s Newspaper and Eye on Design. Her criticism and commentary have been cited in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Dwell, CNN, Eater, Vox and Business of Fashion, among other publications and media outlets. 

As a designer, she works independently across brand identity, editorial and art direction projects, often drawing from archival research and visual history to inform contemporary design systems and print work. Her clients include A24, Herman Miller, Phaidon, HBO and The Whitney Museum, as well as design studios like Pentagram, Interbrand, Mythology and Porto Rocha. 

She publishes Casual Archivist, a newsletter about ephemera, and teaches at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Parsons. In 2024, she was selected as a Young Guns winner by The One Club for Creativity.

Headshot Diana Varma RGD

Diana Varma RGD

Design Educator & Podcaster

Diana Varma is an award-winning lecturer by day, and an avid podcaster by night.

She teaches within the School of Graphic Communications Management (GCM), as well as the Master of Digital Media (MDM) program at Toronto Metropolitan University where she helps students connect their technical left brains, creative right brains and entrepreneurial hearts for fulfilling careers in creative industries. Diana is also an advocate for living your most confidently creative life, having recently produced a course for Domestika on the topic. Diana has 150+ published articles in Graphic Arts Magazine, as well as through the RGD. She firmly believes that more problems should be solved by “lip-syncing for your life.”

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