Kevin Budelmann

President
Md-kevin
Kevin Budelmann likes to say he's not the smartest guy at People Design, but that he's smart enough to hire smart people. His modesty balances his accomplishment as the president of our firm, a designer with a rather large award horde, and speaker and judge at design events and institutions across the continent. Kevin studied computer interface design before it was cool at Carnegie Mellon University, while gaining his degree in graphic design, and before pursuing further study at The School of Design in Switzerland. Kevin likes business, studies commerce. He has studied the inner workings of many businesses in many industries for the past 15 years, learning a lot about how messages travel, how leaders communicate, how sales stories are crafted and told, what customers and clients need. He's fascinated by large organizations, communications problems large and small, and how new technologies are both fixing problems and creating new ones. So he spends half his time helping leaders communicate, and half his time running People Design, the third half learning about new technologies, and his fourth and best half he spends as husband to Yang and Dad to Toki and Bruno.

Asked to speak at these events
A! Desino Mexican Design Conference
AIGA Detroit
Kendall College of Art and Design
Northern Michigan Ad Club
The Art Directors Club of Cincinnati

Juried these competitions
AIGA Detroit
The Ann Arbor Ad Club
The Art Directors Club of Cincinnati
The Art Director's Club of Cleveland
The Art Directors Club of Houston
The Art Directors Club of New York

Work appears in these books
1000 Graphic Elements
401 Design Meditations
American Graphic Design Awards
Best of Brochure Design
Breaking Designer's Block
Color Graphics
Color Management for Logos
Design Elements
Design Secrets
DesignAgencies.com
Encycolopedia Brittancia
Fantastic Folders and Exceptional Envelopes
Identity Solutions
Inside the Business of Graphic Design
Interactive Design
Leadership and Management for HR Professionals
Letterhead 6
The Perfect Package
Typography 27
Webworks: Exploring Online Design
Webworks: Navigation

Recieved awards from these organizations
AIGA
American Center for Design
Communication Arts
Creativity
Critique magazine
Graphis
How magazine
Print magazine
Step magazine
The Art Directors Club of New York

Affiliated with these organizations
AIGA
APDF
DMI
Grand Rapids Magazine Design Panel
Design West Michigan adviser

Education
Carnegie Mellon University
BFA in Graphic Design

School for Design, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Study Abroad Program

Harvard Business School
Executive Education Seminar

Links
Profile on CMU website
ideas » Kevin
Design West Michigan
Last night I attended a Haworth-hosted kick-off event for Design West Michigan – a regional, cross-disciplinary design organization. Focused on exploring “design as an economic building block for the region” the DWM was seeded by a federally-funded DOL WIRED grant, working with The Right Place and Lakeshore Advantage, and part of the Innovation Works initiatives. We’re [...]

Metrics of a better experience
This past Wednesday, several of us attended a presentation by Michal Lorenc of Google, sponsored by AimWest. Here are a few snaps. It was pretty high level, so while it was nice to hear what they’re doing from the source, we hoped for more depth. Of particular interest was the rapidly evolving Google Apps which [...]

Serial entrepreneurship at SEED
Last Friday I attended the second SEED conference in Chicago. The “One-Day Conference on Design, Entrepreneurship & Inspiration” is put on by 37signals‘ Jason Fried, famed Chicago designer Carlos Segura, and Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners, The Deck, and other endeavors. We’ve been fans of 37signals long before they became a product firm, when their [...]