PARTICIPANTS

William Drenttel is a designer, publisher and design leader. Bill works in partnership with Jessica Helfand at Winterhouse, a design consultancy focused on social change and innovation, publishing and online media, and cultural and educational institutions. Recent clients include Teach for All, Poetry Foundation, New England Journal of Medicine, Archives of American Art, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Harvard Law Review, Yale School of Management, New York University School of Journalism, University of Chicago Press and the National Design Awards. In recent years he has been the design director of Teach For All, an international initiative working on education innovation in 20+ countries. Through Winterhouse Institute, he was the recipient of a $1.5 million Rockefeller Foundation grant during 2009-2010 to develop collective action and collaboration for social impact across the design industry. He is president emeritus of AIGA, in the Art Director’s Hall of Fame and the recipient of AIGA Medal for Design Excellence, the highest honor awarded within the design profession.

Bill is also the publisher, editorial director and co-founder of Design Observer, the widely-read blog about design and visual culture. As a publisher, he has developed books under the Winterhouse imprint at multiple university presses.