Rei Inamoto on November 2

Inamoto, the San Francisco-based chief creative officer of global ad agency AKQA, is the king of creative solutions for global titans and collecting accolades for his innovations in the media and tech landscape along the way. Always on the cutting edge, the studio has developed award-winning apps for Nike (the Training Club), Visa (the Signature Wallet) and publisher Dorling Kindersley (the Human Body).

Book covers by Chip Kidd. Images courtesy of bookcoverarchive.com

Chip Kidd on November 2

The author and graphic designer discusses the state of book publishing and the future of book design (hold on to your seats, Steven Heller alumni). Kidd has won a National Design Award for communication design and has created covers for authors including Don DeLillo, David Sedaris and Michael Crichton.

Deborah Adler’s ClearRX packaging design. Images courtesy of moma.org

Deborah Adler on November 3

Adler‘s design mandate: make lives easier and safer. The Milton Glaser protegé and packaging designer did just that in 2005 at the age of 29. After her grandmother accidentally took pills meant for her grandfather, Adler got the idea to re-shape the bottle and reorganize the information list: name, intake schedule and expiry date. In the end, she reinvented the ClearRx medicine labels used by pharmacies at American retail giant Target.

The LCD installation at Matthew Night Arena in Oregon by Jason Bruges. Images courtesy of jasonbruges.com

Jason Bruges on November 3

Bruges is renowned for his global interventions that straddle the world of art and architecture. From its East London, U.K. office, Jason Bruges Studio recently completed a masterpiece of an LCD curtain for the Matthew Night Arena in Eugene, Oregon. It tracks the flow and movement of play on the basketball court using an overhead camera and responds with a changing display of greens and yellows – the team colours of the University of Oregon Ducks.

Water Matters: A Design Manual for Water Conservation in Buildings designed by Eddie Opera at Pentagram. Image courtesy of pentagram.com

Eddie Opara on November 3

Opara joined Pentagram nearly a year ago. His work includes identity branding, packaging, exhibition environments and user interfaces. Recently, he collaborated with the New York City Department of Design and Construction on Water Matters: A Design Manual for Water Conservation in Buildings. With easy-to-read illustrations and graphs, the book offers the city’s reccomendations using bright colours and the friendly fonts VAG Rounded and Helvetica Textbook.

Designthinkers is on November 2 and 3 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 255 Front St. in Toronto.