Span

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Span | Metamorphosis

About

Span is a studio crossing the boundaries of communication design in all mediums.

Our work is focused on challenging expectations with wit, logic, and a playful spirit. Blending typographic discipline with fearless expression, we elevate the role of the visual message in both culture and community. Span takes the long view — in every gesture and every project.

We see our design practice as a research and development lab both for our clients’ needs and for our own inquiry. We strive to discover innovative ways to increase impact in the art of communication through imagination and experimentation. We experiment with new models for sustainability that weave together equality, inclusiveness, and environmentalism as an ethos for success in both our work and our studio.

Span has been featured by the international media including Wired Magazine, The Economist, Smithsonian Magazine, US News and World Report, and the Associated Press. The studio has also received recognition from the design profession in Communication Arts, Brand New, the Society of Typographic Arts, and the Type Directors Club among others.

Services

Communities

Awards

Team

Partners John Pobojewski, Bud Rodecker, and Nick Adam have more than 35 years of shared experience shaping brand strategy and design for high-profile clients in the design, cultural, and civic communities. They are joined by a team of uniquely talented designers, photographers, 3D animators, illustrators, programmers, musicians, typographers, and educators. We believe this diverse set of viewpoints energizes our thinking, drives originality, and makes our work better.

Partners

Span John Pobojewski

John Pobojewski, Partner & Design Director

John Pobojewski is a partner and design director at Span. Pobojewski focuses on intermedia and the blending of brand, interactive, sound, motion, and environments.

Span Bud Rodecker

Bud Rodecker, Partner & Design Director

Bud Rodecker is a partner and design director at Span and an adjunct professor at DePaul University. His work explores the space between logical constraints and formal play, and balances form with meaning. He strives to cut to the core, simply and with a playful spirit.

Span Nick Adam

Nick Adam, Associate Partner & Design Director

Nick Adam is associate partner and design director at Span. His work focuses on the power of identity, through which typographic details and formal maneuvers embrace qualities that are true to the entities he collaborates with.

Studio

Span Zach Minnich

Zach Minnich, Senior Designer

Zach Minnich is a senior designer forging a lifetime of practice and describes the on-going work as a search for his voice through a collection of studies.

Span Alyssa Arnesen

Alyssa Arnesen, Senior Designer

Alyssa Arnesen is a senior designer from metro Detroit who centers her practice on typography, materiality and storytelling.

Span Valeria Bernal

Valeria Bernal, Designer

Valeria Bernal is a designer, born in Acapulco, MX and raised in the Quad Cities, who explores expanding visual expression through experimentation and playing with new mediums, while blending this with traditional design approaches.

Span Marisa Cruz

Marisa Cruz, Designer

Marisa Cruz is a designer driven to explore the relationships between culture, community, and language, and how design can facilitate conversation within those spaces.

Span Alec Hudson

Alec Hudson, Designer

Alec Hudson is a designer from Colorado, aspiring to give authenticity and voice to others, with a deep interest in the future of design and its profound impact on culture. Self-taught, Alec has had his work featured on NPR and BET and has worked with a wide range of clients, from Grammy-nominated artists to Chicago fashion boutiques.

Span Portrait Kevin DSC01063

Kevin Moreland, Designer

Kevin Moreland is a designer who explores identity and story through kinetic interactive experiences, information design, and brand identities. Coming from a multicultural background within a midwestern context, his practice emphasizes the self in relationship to art and technology.

Collaborators

Donna Speigel, Strategy & Copywriting

Through immersion with her clients, Donna Speigel develops a foundational brand strategy, an essential tool that drives not only the marketing campaigns and messaging she creates, but holistic decision making throughout the organization to keep it consistently on brand. For more than 15 years, Donna was the “voice” of both the Crate and Barrel and CB2 lifestyle brands, and prior to that, a V.P., Creative Director at the Leo Burnett Company.

Tom Mulhern, Strategy and Research

For over 30 years, Tom Mulhern has helped clients and teams navigate front-end complexity and ambiguity as they seek to invent and adapt brands, services, places, organizations, and communities. Leveraging his core skills as a writer and facilitator, Tom built and led human-centered brand and experience strategy teams at Doblin, VSA Partners and Gensler.

Lauren Viera, Copywriting

Lauren Viera has spent the past 25 years telling life stories and brand stories, and has built a career around translating the human experience into an engaging read. A journalist by training and storyteller by heart, she uses curiosity and research to bring concepts to life, obsessing over details to deepen the lasting impact of an idea, while streamlining voice and tone for consistency.

Lyndon Valicenti, Systemic Design

Lyndon Valicenti, founding principal of Daylight, has over 15 years of cross-sector experience leading strategy, policy, and research initiatives on social and environmental issues from climate resilience to equitable community development. Lyndon is a skilled facilitator and has led inclusive design and strategy processes for numerous partners during critical moments of transformation.

Ryan Gann AIA NOMA, Community Engagement and Design Research

Ryan helps clients become better versions of themselves through design, culture, and prosperity. This work expands beyond architecture and often sits at the intersection of engagement and facilitation, elevating voices through design. Ryan’s professional portfolio spans architecture, urban planning, and experimental design investigations that enhance communities.