who we are
A NETWORK OF BRIGHTSPOTS
Sunni Brown, M.P.A., is Owner of BrightSpot Info Design, a company
specializing in visual thinking to support organizational and group success.
Sunni was trained in graphic facilitation at The Grove Consultants International, a San Francisco-based company that pioneered the use of visuals in meetings and group processes. She is currently an Associate of The Grove, a freelance consultant for XPlane – the visual thinking company – and an Associate of Alphachimp Studios. She is also co-Founder of VizThink Austin, currently the largest visual thinking community in the United States. She is pleasantly surprised by her recent client list, which includes Disney, Zappos, and Duarte Design/TED Conference, and when Sunni was featured in the Austin-American Statesman and The Hindu (India’s national newspaper), she scratched her head in confounded but happy amazement. Sunni presents regularly on the topics of graphic recording and visual thinking and is in the process of co-authoring a playbook with Dave Gray on applying visual thinking techniques to meetings. She is also a contributing researcher for Nancy Duarte’s upcoming book on storytelling and presentations. Sunni holds Bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and Linguistics and a Master’s in Public Affairs from the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs. She lives in Austin, TX.
Erik Kuntz is owner and principal designer of 2 Bad Mice Design, an illustration and Web-design company located in Austin, TX. Before moving to Austin, Erik was head of Web services for AOL UK (as in United Kingdom). He’s studied comics under Scott McCloud, has training in classical animation, and is the creator of the Webcomic Hex Libris. He is also a principal information designer for BrightSpot.
Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. A collection of his Newspaper Blackout Poems is forthcoming from HarperCollins in February 2010. He’s drawn for clients such as Austin City Limits and SXSW and designs websites by day.
Chi-chi Wang is a programmer, writer, painter, illustrator, ceramicist, digital animator, graphics artist and ninja. He’s one of BrightSpot’s principle illustrators and he’s currently finishing up his college education at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.
Mike Rohde is a designer and art director with a passion for simple, effective and usable design solutions. He has over 20 years experience as a professional designer, specializing in logo and identity design, application icon design, web and user interface design.
Jessica Hagy…copywriter
Veronica Escobedo…designer
Jennifer Elsner…web designer
Stephanie Chen…designer
Joe Shoulak…illustrator
Dylan Meconis…cartoonist and illustrator
ADVISORY BOARD
Dave Gray is the Founder and Chairman of XPLANE, the visual thinking company. Founded in 1993, XPLANE has grown to be the world’s leading consulting and design firm focused on information-driven communications. Dave’s time is spent researching and writing on visual business, as well as speaking, coaching and delivering workshops to educators, corporate clients and the public. He is also a founding member of VizThink, an international community of Visual Thinkers.
David Armano is currently a senior vice president at Edelman Digital, the interactive arm of global communications firm Edelman. He has 14 years of experience in the industry with the majority of his time spent in digital marketing and user experience design. An active participant in the industry, he writes Logic + Emotion which is ranked in the top media + marketing blogs according to Advertising Age. His writing and visual thinking has been cited by Forrester, The Boston Globe and has landed him in BusinessWeek on several occasions including their “Best of 2006”. He also writes at the Harvard Business Review blog.
