Kristen Youngman
Kristen Youngman
Interactive Designer, Art Director, Artist
Kristen Youngman (born December 15) is an American art director, interactive designer, and artist, known for her ecoart, light installations and work in augmented reality. She has predominantly worked in New York, San Francisco and Chicago.
While she has been commissioned to produce art and has exhibited in several galleries in Chicago, she most enjoys creating art that exists in the public eye on everyday streets.
Experience
Kristen has been working for over 14 years in advertising and design. She studied Advertising at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. While there she started a website company and was an entrepreneur for 3 years following; designing product interfaces, and running new business. She got her feet wet through the AAAA’s MAIP at Leo Burnett and Grey Worldwide.
She moved to New York fulltime to work as a designer at GSG Design in 2005. From there she made her move to become an art director at Gotham. Her coding side melded with her art direction and her digital work at Gotham got her promoted to interactive art director.
In 2010 Kristen moved to San Francisco to pursue another coast and worked as an interactive art director for EURO RSCG (now Havas Worldwide), Swirl, and Benefit Cosmetics. She explored the tech startup world when she joined AwayFind as their designer. During her time there she also taught Interactive Advertising at the Academy of Art University.
She returned to her hometown of Chicago in 2012 to complete her MFA in Visual Communication and Interaction Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her most recent stints include working at BBDO Chicago and Next/Now where she spewed brilliance for cutting edge brand experiences, advertising, augmented reality apps and virtual reality experiences.
Ways of Working
Kristen believes one must have a lot of toys in the toolbox, constantly be seeking new ones and discover old ones too. Her theories on prominent methodologies in her work are as follows:
Design
Like air, if done correctly you won't even notice it. If done well, inhale it in every chance you get. Let's make fresh design!
Strategy
If it's not smart then I don't want to bother doing it.
User Experience
I obsess over UX. It's the difference of "on to the Next" and "Whoa, how long have I been here?"
Technology
It's true. I code. I kinda even like it. Won't say I love it. But I do love what it can do.
Social
There's some scary stuff out there. We should talk about it. And then get others to.
Targeting
Its just rude to send the right message to the wrong people. People are busy, ya know?
Exhibitions & Art
Earth Week Projections for EarthWeekChallenge.org Climate Reality Project Projections in The Garden of the West Loop Chicago Guest Blog for NRDC Action Fund Premiere Projection Mapped Murals for #GraffitiOnGreen @ Soho House Chicago Interactive Public Runway for Activate Chicago 2018 with the Chicago Loop Alliance Augmented Reality 101 @ Soho House Chicago SAIC MFA Show @ the Sullivan Ga lleries RESONATE 11.0 @ the Freakeasy The Design Show @ the Chicago Art Department In/Studio @ Rational Park GalleryOther Works
