Learn more about the competition judges.
Domenica Genovese is a partner at the marketing communications firm Greatest Creative Factor, where she serves as director of creative product. Genovese's work has been recognized by the AIGA, Communications Arts magazine, Print magazine, Graphis magazine, Graphis Brochure, Graphis Logo, UCDA, and CASE. She has given presentations and led seminars at national and regional marketing and design conferences, including AIGA, UCDA and CASE, and has served as a juror for design competitions sponsored by AIGA, Communications Arts magazine, UCDA and CASE. Genovese is a founding board member of AIGA Baltimore and is currently an adjunct faculty member in Towson University's graphic design program.
Edwin Gold is a professor in the University of Baltimore's Klein Family School of Communications Design and director of its Ampersand Institute for Words & Images. Following a 35-year career at the legendary local advertising and design agency Barton-Gillet—including many years as the firm's creative director—Gold joined UBalt in 1982, first as an adjunct instructor and later as a full-time faculty member. He established the Ampersand Institute in 1989 as a way to bring together professionals and students working in the communications design field. Gold is the author of The Business of Graphic Design, which Critique magazine called "one of the 82 greatest books on design ever written."
Kit Hinrichs is a graphic designer and a collector of American flag iconography and memorabilia. He founded Studio Hinrichs in 2009, following 23 years as a partner of the international design firm Pentagram. He has design directed projects for the California Academy of Sciences graphic identity program, Sony Metreon Entertainment Complex identity and interior graphics, United Airlines' Hemispheres magazine, Design Within Reach identity and catalog, and a number of others. He is co-founder and design director of @Issue: Journal of Business and Design, and has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the California College of the Arts, and the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Several of his pieces are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design. Hinrichs is a recipient of the AIGA medal in recognition of his exceptional achievements in the field of graphic design and visual communication.
Bill Pencek is deputy assistant secretary of the Division of Tourism, Film and the Arts in the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, and serves as executive director of the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission. Prior to these posts, he served as director of the Baltimore Heritage Area and deputy director of the Maryland Historical Trust. A native of Baltimore, Pencek has served on the boards of Baltimore Heritage, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, and was a founding director of 1000 Friends of Maryland.
David Plunkert is a graphic designer, illustrator and cartoonist. He is a co-founder of the design and illustration studio Spur Design in Baltimore. His posters have been collected by the Library of Congress and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum among others and have been exhibited worldwide. His illustrations have appeared in many major magazines, newspapers and ad campaigns. He is the creator of Heroical, an ongoing superhero anthology first published in 2013. His illustrated hardcover, Edgar Allan Poe: Stories & Poems, will be released in November.