{ A little bit about }

Justin Dauer

 

The speaking event bio:

Justin is a multi-faceted, multi-pierced, multi-tattooed designer, author, and speaker with 23 years of experience (across agency, studio, and tech) from Chicago. His passions lie in building inclusive and diverse teams, fostering creative cultures, and advocating for design serving the human connection.

You'll find him often engaging with the AIGA's speaking events, interviewed in Forbes magazine and Medium's Forge publication, and penning articles for CEO World Magazine and A List Apart. He speaks internationally on culture and design (most recently via the opening keynotes at UXPA International and Midwest UX). Justin is also the writer of the celebrated book Creative Culture and is currently the Vice President of Design at bswift, a CVS Health company.

 

Justin speaking at Leading Design New York '22

The storytelling bio:

Denim. Coffee. Tattoos. Design. These are nouns with two syllables. They also summarize a man with a beard with (a semblance of) a plan who values the gift of fatherhood above all else.

As a part of the late 90's and early 00's "web design scene"—via pseudoroom, GUI Galaxy, as a K10k newsauthor—there's a chance you've seen some of Justin's early digital design work.

He graduated the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Visual Communications at a time when the job title “Web Designer” was an ethereal mystery to our moms and dads (but not quite as egregious as "Webmaster"). The implications of graphic design upon the digital world captured his fascination; self-teaching code and development, he sought to marry visual communications with a raw and unshaped Internet.

Moving to the East Coast at 21 and taking a job as the first web designer for the now defunct Interface Monthly Magazine in Portland, Maine, he had found his calling: the infusion of design with the digital landscape.

Returning to Chicago a couple years later and with Josef Müller-Brockmann and user advocacy claiming equal parts of his creative heart, he’s since crafted digital experiences for clients like Sony, Chase, SRAM, IBM, CVS Health, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Throughout his creative journey and with bloodshot tunnel vision, he’s had the innate need to take on roles that were projects; teams to be built, processes to be defined, practices to be championed.

He’s drawn from these career’s experiences across agency side, client side, product-side, and pure tech toward fostering healthy, dynamic, supportive creative cultures. The concept of putting people first  – in both design and workplace – keenly informs his design philosophy and creative mindset. The human connection must be at the core of our design process as well as the cultural interactions at the office.

It’s this vision that fueled both editions of his first book, Creative Culture, informs his presentations (Midwest UX opening keynote, AIGA Portfolio Festival, Big Design conference, etc.), and underpins his role as the Vice President of Human-Centered Design and Development at bswift, a CVS Health company.

© 2021 Justin Dauer