Creating Culture Across Creative Communities – Panel

The cornerstone of creating a community is identifying and understanding its culture. Often, creative communities are complex spaces with a multitude of people and personalities. During this discussion, panelists will define and share their experiences navigating the culture. Then brainstorm ways to create a culture across creative communities.

Moderated by Jacinda Walker, our panel includes these incredible designers: 

Hung-Hsiang Chen | Head of Lilly Design Lab | Eli Lilly

Nicte Cuevas | Principal | Nicte Creative Design

Omar Rashan | Design Freelancer

About the Panelists

Hung-Hsiang Chen is the Head of Lilly Design Lab at Eli Lilly. He leads a team of innovation strategists, industrial designers, UX designers, and visual communication designers, creating innovative medical product solutions for better treatment outcomes. Before joining Eli Lilly in Indiana, Hung-Hsiang worked at Novo Nordisk (Denmark) and Asus Computer (Singapore and Taiwan). In his 20+ years of global experience, he built multiple design teams from ground zero inside the organizations and brought the innovation mindset deep into the company’s culture.

Nicte Cuevas (Principal, Nicte Creative Design @nictecreativedesign) is an award-winning brand strategist and graphic designer who uses empathy-driven tactics to evolve, invigorate, and amplify businesses’ unique brand positions. Her Latina heritage (Venezuelan, Mexican, and Colombian) rooted her love for cultural diversity. Nicte translates the complexities of color into nuanced, purpose-driven stories using color psychology and intentional messaging tools, ultimately facilitating profitable outcomes. And as a LinkedIn Learning author, Nicte has empowered thousands worldwide.

Culture-Based Creative Omar Rashan (@omar.rashan) is an Art-preneur with expertise in design, branding, digital marketing, and print media. These efforts along with his many works have spawned multiple mainstream and community engagement endeavors. Rashan’s purpose is to use his knowledge and experience to motivate youth while stimulating world change through artistic problem-solving with hopes of attaining dreams. With 20+ years of experience, he has embarked on an immense level of innovative wisdom with intentions of distributing it throughout his community.

Jacinda Walker (@designexplorr), MFA is renowned for her work in design, diversity, research, and strategy. She is the founder and creative director of designExplorr, a social enterprise whose mission addresses the diversity gap within the design profession. Her research on Design Journeys: Strategies for Increasing Diversity in Design Disciplines has been hailed as breakthrough work. This solutions-based thesis explores diversity in design disciplines and investigates effective strategies to expose Black and Latino youth to design careers. Ms. Walker’s future goals are to help scale diversity in design initiatives within education institutions, corporations, organizations, and museums.