Global Creative Leaders Come Together to Form Art Directors Club Board

​The One Club for Creativity announced 21 preeminent creative professionals from across a range of industries who have been named to serve on the newly established Art Directors Club Board.

Founded in 1920, the Art Directors Club is the world’s longest continuously running creative organisation to support and celebrate excellence in craft and innovation in all forms of advertising and design. Home to the celebrated ADC Annual Awards, global Young Guns competition and more, ADC merged with The One Club in 2017 to form The One Club for Creativity, the world’s leading non-profit organisation whose mission is to advance the global creative community.

The newly formed Art Directors Club Board, made up of some of the world’s most esteemed creative leaders, will look to engage and advance the creative community with a range of new and enhanced existing programming, and reassert ADC’s legacy and leadership role as the original creative organisation for both design and advertising.

Leading the effort is Brian Collins, co-founder of COLLINS in San Francisco and New York, who has been appointed ADC President. Collins has a long history of involvement in the organisation: he was an officer in the Art Directors Club before the merger and developed the ADC Designism award with legendary designer Milton Glaser for work that best encourages positive societal and cultural change. He has served on The One Club for Creativity Board of Directors since 2017.

The international group of creative leaders — both highly accomplished veterans and emerging voices — who have joined forces on the new ADC Board are:

• Leandro Assis, designer and lettering artist, Lebassis, Rio de Janeiro
• Aporva Baxi, co-founder, executive creative director, DixonBaxi, London
• Gail Bichler, creative director, The New York Times Magazine, New York
• Alex Center, designer, founder, CENTER, New York
• Kapono Chung, founding partner, head of design, Combo, New York
• Alan Dye, vice president of Human Interface Design, Apple, San Francisco
• Mah Ferraz, film editor, co-founder, Church Edit, New York
• Karin Fong, creative director, Imaginary Forces, Los Angeles 
• Verònica Fuerte, founder, creative directress, Hey, Barcelona
• Rick Griffith, former Denver Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, public art policy chair, and founder, partner, MATTER, Denver
• Steven Heller, co-chair Emeritus, MFA Design / designer as author and entrepreneur, School of Visual Arts, New York 
• Lauren Indovina, director, visual artist, House of Indovina, Los Angeles
• Oliver Jeffers, artist, author, activist, Oliver Jeffers Studio, Belfast
• Pablo Juncadella, executive creative director, Mucho, Barcelona 
• John Maeda, VP, engineering, head of computational design/AI Platform, Microsoft, Silicon Valley 
• Debbie Millman, writer, designer, educator, artist, brand consultant, Host of Design Matters podcast, New York 
• Diego Segura, founder, Family Office, New York
• Resh Sidhu, global director, Snap AR marketing and branded innovation, Snap, New York
• Marina Willer, partner, graphic designer, filmmaker, Pentagram, London
• Yoshihiro Yagi, executive creative director, Dentsu, Tokyo

The Board’s agenda is to build a stronger creative community, establish a critical stand on creative excellence, and foster the next generation of creative leaders. Board members will also be encouraged to advance ADC in their local communities in ways that address creative excellence and other critical issues.

“The Art Directors Club didn’t just show up first—it kicked the door open back in 1920,” said Brian Collins.  “Everyone else wandered in later with their events and annual award shows. All good. But ADC was the original - proof that this wild, visual, opinionated community could  organise together and build something lasting. The ADC not only offered a model for creative excellence; it has lit the match for 105 years.”

Art Directors Club background

The Art Directors Club has a unique legacy as the world’s first creative organisation to support and celebrate the global creative community in advertising, design, illustration, photography, typography, and more.

In addition to designers and advertising professionals, inductees into the ADC Hall of Fame include popular artists and individuals who have affected the broader field of visual culture, including Paola Antonelli, Walt Disney, Ray and Charles Eames, Eiko Ishioka, Annie Leibovitz, Gordon Parks, Andy Warhol and others.

Upon its founding in 1920, ADC’s first award was the medal created by famed sculptor Paul Manship (1885-1966), best-known for his monumental gilded rendering of Prometheus, permanently installed at the heart of Rockefeller Centre. In celebration of the organisation’s first century, the ADC revived the accolade to honour select innovators who have had the greatest impact on the creative community in the past five years, exhibiting exemplary leadership in moving the profession forward. Past honourees can be viewed here.

The Paul Manship Medal will now be awarded annually by the Art Directors Club as the highest honour of the profession, complementing the achievements of the winners of the ADC Annual Awards.

Global winners of the most recent ADC 104th Annual Awards can be viewed here.  

All winners are represented in the 2025 ADC Global Creative Rankings.

The One Club for Creativity – home ofThe One Show, ADC Annual Awards, Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE) awards, ONE Asia Awards, Type Directors Club and competition, TDC Ascenders, Young Guns, Young Ones Student Awards, Next Creative Leaders, ONE Screen Short Film Festival, and more – is the world’s foremost non-profit organisation whose mission is to support and celebrate the success of the global creative community. Revenue generated from entries to its global awards shows goes back into the industry to fund programming under the organisation’s four pillars: Education, Inclusion & Diversity, Gender Equality, and Creative Development.