Are you experienced?

What makes a good experience? Answering this question is the raison d'etre of the Experience Group. Encompassing visual, interface, interaction, auditory, hallucinatory, and verbal creations, the Experience Group (or 'EG' as we lovingly refer to them) conducts intensive research into all facets of creating meaningful experiences for users online and off.

Although the basic mission of the EG is to support and develop creative capabilities at vivid, we've refrained from calling the EG the "Design Group". We made this choice for two reasons: design happens in other disciplines as well, most notably engineering; and design is but a part of the process of building an experience.)

Team roles:

Chief Creative Officer (Nathan Shedroff)
Head cheerleader for the EG, the Chief Creative Officer provides ideas, advice, and inspiration on specific projects, as well as vivid's overall creative process. Also plays Design Cop when crimes against usability are committed.

Director, Experience Group (Laurie Blavin
Manager, Visual Designers (Fern Friedman
Our beloved Den Mothers have many responsibilities to the EG: together they oversee hiring, firing, project staffing, and run group meetings and other design-related activities (such as vivid school, outings, and training). They also make sure we have all the obscure fonts and whizzy new software we need, and put us down for naps when we start to get cranky.

Creative Director, Information Design (Drue Miller, Gayle Curtis)
Creative Director, Visual Design
Leading the design effort on specific projects and contributing their talents to others, Creative Directors bring their own ideas to the creative process and help to guide the EG deeper into the waters of understanding. Creative Directors are actively involved in hiring and training designers in their area of specialty, as well as documenting and maintaining design methodologies and helping to uphold vivid's design standards.

Creative Lead
As "keeper of the vision" for a project, the Creative Lead has two primary responsibilities: the first is to work closely with the client to shape the design vision for the product. The second is to inspire, guide and motivate the design team to realize this vision. Creative Leads have expertise in different facets of design, dependent upon the project's needs.

Senior Visual Designers (Chris Autry, Sabine Messner, Stuart Rogers, Valerie Casey )
Visual Designers (Aaron Puritz, Claudy Nielsen)
Conceptualize and produce visual elements for projects (plus, they get all the cool Photoshop filters first). Senior designers typically have more experience, having worked for more time and/or on more complex types of projects. Senior designers also tend to have some experience managing/leading other designers.

Senior Information Designers (Ani Phyo, Bethany Smith)
Information Designers (Alfreda Yu, Andrew Sandler, Blythe Miller, JoAnn Lotfi, Tom Rohrer)
Conceptualize and develop all aspects of the interface and interaction (including, but not limited to, things like navigation, user feedback, color palette, information design, etc.). Interaction designers work closely with visual designers and engineers to create interfaces that are usable, enjoyable, and technically feasible. Senior designers bring more experience to the job and head up larger, more complex projects, often leading a team of ID's. Associate ID's are part of the ID teams, and they create detailed design documents (storyboards, workflows, paper prototypes) that implement the information and interaction design.

Design Assistants (Eva Cohen, Ryan Shaw, Vanessa Burgelin)
Carry out the evil plans of the designers by producing and processing graphics.

Assistant to the EG Manager (Kevin Sonnichsen)
Seated at the right hand of the EG Manager, the assistant helps with critical tasks like organization, documentation and tracking, recruiting activities, and communicating the needs of the group staff.

Who they are: Aaron Puritz Senior Visual Designer Abby Wiring/Cabling Inspector Alfreda Yu Associate Interaction Designer Andrew Sandler Information Designer Ani Phyo Senior Information Designer Bethany Smith Senior Information Designer Blythe Miller Information Designer Chris Autry Senior Visual Designer Claudy Niesen Senior Visual Designer Drue Miller Creative Director, Information Design Ede Schweizer Design Assistant Eva Cohen Design Assistant Fern Friedman Manager, Visual Design Gayle Curtis Creative Director, Information Design JoAnn Lotfi Information Designer Kathy Allbright Visual Designer Kenneth Auerweck Design Assistant Kevin Sonnichsen Visual Designer Laurie Blavin Director, Experience Group Louise Bartlett Information Designer Raoul Rickenberg Creative Director, Information Design Ryan Shaw Design Assistant Sabine Messner Senior Visual Designer Sophie Henry Information Designer Stuart Rogers Senior Visual Designer Tom Rohrer Information Designer Valerie Casey Senior Visual Designer Vanessa Burgelin Design Assistant   Where they go: To further their understanding of experience, the EG takes field trips to local events and places. They go to become aware of personal boundaries, to learn how physical space affects perceptions, and to explore 3D metaphors so that they may better translate them to the 2D desktop. Recent outings have included: The Bay Model in the Marin Headlands. Limn Gallery Frequent treks to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art and The Exploratorium. Monthly BayCHI meetings at Xerox PARC. An undercover mission to Niketown when it opened in San Francisco, to covertly study the effects of sensory overload on consumer spending habits. A visit to San Francisco's new (and controversial) Public Main Library, to critique the information experience. A spin through the annual Auto Show at Moscone Center, to learn about automotive design. An evening at Bay Area Theatre Sports, an improvisational theater group. A dark, fetid crawl through the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium, a pitch-black journey into touch and balance. Know of a place the EG should check out? Tell 'em about it! Business Strategy Group Engineering Group Experience Group Management Group Operations Group Producers Group Clients