Design Department Alumni Show
Everything that happens before is only an introduction to the future, rather than the final chapter.
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Included in the show:
Kasey Jarvis
Kasey Jarvis is an industry veteran with extensive experience in UX, automotive, footwear, apparel, and equipment design. He has contributed to leading brands such as General Motors, Nike, Black Diamond Equipment, and Under Armour, where he served as Chief Design Officer. Known for his multi-disciplinary approach, Kasey has driven the creation of innovative, disruptive, and award-winning products across diverse industries. He is a passionate advocate for circular and sustainable design principles, whole problem thinking, and being nice to people.
John Omdahl
John Omdahl is a design leader and product innovator dedicated to making everyday life better through human-centered design. As Vice President of Industrial Design at Trove Brands, he leads the creative teams behind some of the world's most recognizable brands, including Owala and BlenderBottle. With a career spanning everything from aircraft seating to outdoor gear and baby products, John is known for turning consumer insights into intuitive products that people actually use. His work has earned top industry honors, including IDEA, Red Dot, and iF awards, but his real metric for success is creating something that solves a real-world frustration. Before Trove Brands, John served as Creative Director at Rocketship and held senior roles at TXS Industrial Design. When he isn't at the studio, he shares his experience with the next generation as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University.
Mary Jane Callister
One of the strengths of the graphic design program during my time as a student at BYU was its emphasis on the craft of typography. This instruction instilled in me a love of type, which was furthered by the opportunity to move to New York and work for the acclaimed typographer Louise Fili.
Early in my career 1 realized the projects that excited me most were those that centered around editorial design.
Projects composed of lengthy text, headlines, subheads, captions, lists, data, and recipes. And so I've spent most of my career working on magazines, illustrated books and eventually a newspaper, The New York Times.
For me, the fun of editorial design is the process of identifying the most important ideas and tone of the text and then puzzling out a visual solution that engages and informs the reader.
Throughout my career I've worked with photographers and illustrators to create visuals that integrate with typography to tell the story. Sometimes the type is illustrative and large, bringing whimsy or drama to the page. Sometimes it’s straightforward and quiet, letting the photography or illustration shine. But my intent has walkways been to guide the reader through ideas and information in the clearest and most visually delightful way.
Ryan Jung
Ryan is an industrial designer with over a decade of experience building products and design teams. He got his start at Skullcandy in 2014 as an intern, joining full-time in January 2015 the same year he graduated from BYU's Industrial Design program. Over nearly eight years at Skullcandy, he built and managed multiple design teams, and designed, developed, and launched more than 30 new products - rising to Design Director.
From there, Ryan joined Shyft as Chief Design Officer, building and running the company's internal design team for two years. He then launched his own studio, The Deep-End, growing it over three years before merging it into Allstar Design, where he now partners with Brett Lovelady and Chris Metcalfe.
Today, Ryan brings that full arc - from in-house product development to studio leadership — to Allstar's work across consumer electronics, branding, and CPG. He's also currently in his second year serving as a juror for the IDSA IDEA design awards.
Rae Allen
Rachel Allen Everett (pen name Rae Allen) is a comic book author/illustrator published by Dark Horse, Gold Key, Madcave, and soon Dragonsteel. A BYU alum and a lifelong Utahn, Rae proudly resides in Provo. Rae is co-author with Mike Mignola on the Hellboy miniseries Carmen Red Claw: Belly Of The Beast and is creator of The Manderfield Devil. She is illustrator of The Town With A Million Eyes from Gold Key Comics, and Digital Lizards Of Doom Vol. 5 from Papercutz. Outside of comics, Rae is co-art director with her husband Noah on the award-winning indie game TetherGeist, a whimsical precision platformer published on Steam and Switch. Rae is the daughter of Joseph B. Everett, former Family History Librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library, who recently passed away. She wishes to honor him here, as he would have been proud to see her work on display at this event.
Brooke Smart
Brooke Smart has a BFA in Illustration from BYU and works as a children's book illustrator, a large-scale mural artist, and most recently as a sculptural and installation artist with her husband, Jeremy Morgan. Storytelling is important to her, and all of the work she creates is narrative and design-driven. Throughout her career, she has won awards for many of her books, but her favorite part of illustrating books are the comments she receives from children who are able to see themselves in the images she creates. Her public artwork can be seen all over the state of Utah and beyond and she is currently working on an exciting, multi-sculptural project in Sugar House, alongside her husband, Jeremy Morgan. Her clients include The New York Times, Penguin Random House, The Maven District, Salt Lake County Arts and Culture, Salt Lake City Arts Council, PBS, Better Days 2020, and Mindy Kaling.
Brett Lovelady
CEO / CDO / Designer / Originator / Creative Capitalist / Founder
Brett Lovelady is an internationally recognized design leader, serial entrepreneur and most notably the founder of ASTRO Studios of California, the design agency responsible for hundreds of culturally relevant consumer products and brands that have inspired designers and markets worldwide. He's helped commercialize over 500 iconic brands and products, helping clients generate billions in new revenue, as one of America's design leaders, advocating for design at all levels, while directing some of the world's most culturally relevant programs.
Starting as an intern at IBM in Boca Raton Florida, where the original IBM PC was underway, Brett graduated from BYU with a BFA in Industrial Design, and a deep desire to participate in shaping the future of technology for consumer markets.
As BYU's IDSA Student Merit Award winner, Brett started with Tandem Computers as a member of their Future Concept Group. He later joined Lunar Design and Frog Design respectively before launching his own company, ASTRO Studios.
ASTRO launched in 1994, in Palo Alto California and in the shadow of Stanford University, where Brett created ASTRO to be different. More human, innovative and pop culture savvy-- positioning that served him well for decades. ASTRO was also a venture design studio, crafting equity collaborations and enabling ASTRO to participate as investors with chosen clients.
Brett directed many original blockbuster programs at ASTRO including Nike's Triax Watches & Fuelband, and for HP, including Blackbird Gaming and the OfficeJet Printer families. Most notably, he led a team that created Microsoft's XBOX 360 console system.
As founder, Brett created, launched and exited from 5 of his own venture backed, product-centric companies. These companies include ASTRO Gaming, Subpar Golf, MINUS-8 Watches, and eventually ASTRO Studios, acquired in 2020.
Brett and Team ASTRO have received a range of industry recognitions including:
- The IDSA 2022 Special Achievement award.
- 2018 Fast Company Most Innovative Companies in Design award
- 11 nominations for the Smithsonian / Cooper Hewitt
National Design Award
- 2x Business Week/IDSA Design of the Decade awards.
- The First IDSA Catalyst Award for the business impact.
- Plus, numerous patents, speaking & writing engagements and awards from IDSA, IDEA, Good Design, IF, Red Dot, Core77, TIME, Fast Company, etc.
- And most proudly... Brett has employed over 250 design related professionals from all over the world during his
Today, is currently the Founder of ALLSTAR Design in Salt Lake City, Utah focused on defining, designing and deploying new products, brands and experiences...always with an eye to improving the everyday human experience.
Brett Helquist
Brett Helquist is the illustrator of many books including "The Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket, "Chasing Vermeer" by Blue Balleitt and most recently "Guitar Genius" by Kim Tomsic and "Cezanne's Parrot" by Amy Guglielmo. He is also the author of "Bedtime for Bear", "Grumpy Goat and "Roger the Jolly Pirate". He grew up in Utah and now lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and two kids. When he’s not working he's usually trying to play his guitar.
CASE
After graduating from BYU, founders Anthony Yumul (BFA Graphic Design, 1998). Travis Stratford (BA Marketing Communications, 1998), Robin Marshall (BA English Lit, 1990), Cameron King (BFA Graphic Design, 2005), and Enoch Palmer (BFA Graphic Design, 1998) moved to New York to build their careers at top ad agencies like Lloyd and Company and in-house brands like Estée Lauder and Ann Taylor. What began as collaborating on freelance projects on nights and weekends eventually grew into Case Agency. Twenty-two years later, they are still combining their diverse talents to partner with clients and in the process have helped mentor a new generation of talent from BYU and beyond.
Strategy-driven and design-obsessed, CASE creates, recharges, and activates iconic beauty, lifestyle, and wellness brands. Since 2004, we have partnered with global leaders like Johnson & Johnson and The Estée Lauder Companies, indie favorites like OUAl and Summer Fridays, and unicorns like e.l.f. Beauty to define their identities, connect with audiences, and grow worldwide.
Em Wall
For Em Wall the art practice and family are inexorably intertwined. Raised in a Mormon family in Michigan, she uses photography to dismantle the domestic traditions and the family structure she was taught as a child. Now, her four children can be seen in Wall's work representing themselves, the photographer, and ideas of gender roles in a religious family. Using the twin lens reflex her grandpa first gave to her mom, Wall's photos use Christian symbols to establish allegories where reality and fiction blend to provoke questions about religious and personal truth.
Em Wall received a BFA from Brigham Young University in 2020 and an MFA from Yale University in 2026. Wall has been commissioned by The New York Times and her work has appeared in the Mormon feminist magazine, Exponent ii. She received the Alice C. Kimball Travel grant while at Yale and a grant from the Yale Foundation. Wall currently lives and works between Connecticut and Michigan.
Maddie Casagranda
Maddie Casagranda is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Houston, Texas. She works primarily with analog and alternative photographic processes, performance art and fibers. Her current work explores representations of generational care and the physicality of motherhood. Her work has been exhibited across the country and internationally, including The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, The Blaffer Art Museum, Throughline Collective, Elgin St. Studios, PH21 Gallery, PRPG.mix, The Springville Museum of Art, The Southeast Center for Photography, and The Praxis Gallery. Maddie earned her BFA from Brigham Young University and an MFA from University of Houston
Taylor Krahenbuhl
Owner and operator of Ravenhill Studio Inc. specializing in illustration and publishing. Annie Award winning Character Designer who has illustrated on such films as the upcoming 2027 release of the Bluey Movie, Sing 3, and Flat Stanley. Currently illustrating on the feature film in development, Little Santa, with House of Cool. Studio Collaborations include Illumination, Disney, Dreamworks, and Sony Pictures Animation on films like The Bad Guys 2, Sing 2, Minions: The Rise of Gru, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Sea Beast. BYU animation graduate class of 2009.