Robert Generette III, known to most as RobZilla, is an illustrator and art educator who calls himself a vector art monster. Drawing mostly on an iPad Pro, he has made sports portraits and murals for the Washington Wizards, Golden State Warriors, Washington Capitals, Nike Baseball, NASCAR and D.C. United. His work pairs traditional art training with a love of sports and new drawing tools.

Mandi Caskey, known as Miss Birdy, is a nationally recognized muralist and public artist based in Columbus, Ohio. For more than 13 years, she has built a career creating large-scale work that transforms architecture into immersive, story-driven experiences. Her murals can be found internationally, and her work has brought her into collaboration with Fortune 500 companies, major brands, cultural organizations, and communities across the world.

Blending surreal realism, bold color, and intricate symbolism, Caskey’s work explores identity, transformation, nature, and the complexity of the human experience. Her practice moves between monumental public art and intimate studio work, carrying the same sense of depth and narrative across both. Whether spanning hundreds of feet or contained within a canvas, her work is designed to feel deeply personal while existing at a scale larger than life.

‍

Award Winning Entrepreneur & Brand Hysteria Expert

Top Innovator in Retail -The Boston Globe

Americas Best Entrepreneur -BusinessWeek

If you dream of inspiring cult-like brand loyalty—the kind that involves mile-long queues and even permanent tattoos—Johnny Cupcakes is for you. The founder of the world-renowned, food-themed tee-shirt brand Johnny Cupcakes, Johnny’s known for helping other people create blueprints for the unexpected sprinkles — giving people more than what they’re expecting through surprise and delight.  This recipe helps build brand loyalty, create memorable experiences, and inspire innovation.

With global bakery-themed T-shirt pop-up shop openings, thousands of customers with his logo tattooed on themselves, people who camp out for his products, and high-profile collaborations with giants such as The Simpsons, Power Rangers, and Nickelodeon, Johnny was named America’s Best Entrepreneur by BusinessWeek, Top Innovator in Retail by The Boston Globe, and featured in INC magazine’s INC 500.

Despite being in one of the most difficult product categories to stand-out in, and a founder of a brand when he was just 19 years old, Johnny’s solution to his business challenges was to create such a unique brand experience that his customers would loyally line-up around the block, time and time again, just to be able to sport his logo on their clothing.

Since then, through his talks and creative consulting, Johnny has shared his strategies with clients that include Apple, L’Oreal, Disney, IBM, Audi, Harvard University, Wieden+Kennedy, Marriott, and P&G.  Also a TEDx speaker, Johnny has been featured in media such as MTV, NPR, Forbes, WIRED, and as a case study in several branding and business books.

‍

Building a creative career without forgetting why you started making things in the first place.

For more than a decade, Lisa Quine has made a career out of making things—painting murals across the country and abroad, collaborating with major brands, and creating work for some of Cleveland’s most recognizable places. But turning creativity into a career can do something strange: the thing you once did for fun becomes deadlines, contracts, expectations, and the constant pressure to figure out what’s next.

In The Serious Business of Play, Lisa looks back at the successes, mistakes, risks, and unexpected wake-up calls that shaped her career—and what happened when she finally gave herself permission to stop chasing the next job and start playing again. That experiment became Illuminated, a 26-piece solo exhibition exploring her life and career since art school, and a reminder that play isn’t the opposite of serious work—sometimes, it’s where our best work begins.

‍

Gemma O’Brien is an Australian artist and designer working across typography, illustration, calligraphy, murals and large-scale public art. Combining traditional hand-painted techniques with contemporary art and design, her work spans commercial commissions, exhibitions and site-specific installations. Clients include NASA, Apple, Google, Nike, Tiffany & Co., Qantas, The New York Timesand leading international musicians. Her large-scale work has appeared internationally, with a public artwork held in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. An award-winning designer and international speaker, Gemma has delivered more than 50 talks worldwide on creativity, art and design.