Local Graphic Design Team Makes National List of "People to Watch in 2006."
January 20, 2006
Champaign - For more than 40 years, Graphic Design USA has tracked trends in the design community. Each January, the publication's highly anticipated "People to Watch" edition throws the national spotlight on new design talent emerging on the national scene. And this year, the spotlight has landed on Champaign. For Matt Hutton and Debby Winter, founders of Spinlight Studio, their inclusion on the list of People to Watch in 2006 was a career-defining moment. But for the editors of GD USA, the choice was a given.
"Every January, we focus on a handful of people who are shaping the design profession, producing notable work, making news, influencing others, leading the community," explains Gordon Kaye, editor and publisher of GD USA. And in 2005, Spinlight made national news. They dominated the American Graphic Design Awards, taking home more awards than any other design firm in the country. But more notably, they did it with small accounts, proving that great design is more about big ideas than big budgets.
Spinlight is a company overflowing with big ideas. So much so that they launched a new company in 2005 to market ideas that venture beyond pen and paper into actual product development. The new company - appropriately dubbed Spinoff - already has its first product and its first client. Artezen, a home furnishing boutique in Bloomington, Illinois, will be the first to stock "The Stick" an upscale CD display rack developed by the Spinlight design team.
Other product ideas may soon follow, but for now their primary focus will continue to be in advertising and marketing, where they've already built their considerable reputation. Over the next five years, they hope to expand their client roster with a few national accounts - a task that should prove easier, now that they've established the fact that there's design talent to be had outside major markets like New York, LA and Chicago. "Great design can happen anywhere," explains Winter. "And we want the world to know that a lot of it happens here."