November 9th, 2020
Changes to the Board of Directors
The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) would like to announce the following changes to our Board of Directors.
Mary Catherine Pflug and Erin McLaughlin have stepped down from the Board to focus on other endeavors.
The Board thanks Mary Catherine for nearly seven years of service, her boundless enthusiasm, and dedication to SOTA and TypeCon. An extra nod of recognition to Mary Catherine for her amazing organizational and people management skills which kept our teams of volunteers humming.
The Board also thanks Erin for contributing so much during her time with SOTA. Erin’s energy, thoughtfulness, and attention to detail were appreciated while overseeing the annual SOTA Catalyst Award, heading up our sponsorship committee, and in her role as Secretary.
Molly Doane, of Adobe, has joined the Board and assumed the role of Secretary relinquished by Erin McLaughlin. Molly brings significant writing, editing, and organizational expertise to SOTA.
Assisting the Board as a new Friend of SOTA is Ian Van Mater, while Jess McCarty has stepped down from her role as a Friend of SOTA.
These changes are effective immediately and follow previous changes to the Board as announced last year.
About the Directors
Theresa Dela Cruz is a font licensing expert with a background in visual communications, music, and ethnic studies. She started her typographic career with FontShop in 2007 as part of their Sales and Support team. She is known for supporting the typographic community, championing type designers, saying “no”, and for her love of coffee. She currently works at Monotype on their Enterprise Solutions team and creates content for TypeCon.
Molly Beth Doane found her way to the typographic community through her degree studies in printmaking and book arts. She’s been supporting the type community in various roles at FontShop, Monotype, and since 2015, Adobe. Now based in Oakland, California, she is the Community Manager for Adobe Fonts, focused on creating content and coordinating sponsorships within the realm of type. A classic introverted extrovert, her time at home among plants, cat, books, and record collection is punctuated by live music, travel, and type conferences. Sometimes tap dancing is involved.
Grant Hutchinson photographs suburbia, appreciates typography, accumulates gadgets, and sweats the details in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys black coffee, low-bit synthpop, geometric shapes, single malt whisky, juggling, and the smell of a freshly tarred roof. A shelf in his office sports a Diploma in Visual Arts from the Alberta College of Art & Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts) and an Emmy Award for his technical work during the 1988 Winter Olympics. He is currently a partner with Butter Label and fills the role of head glyph monkey at Typostrophe.
Xerxes Irani is a third-generation creative professional. His career travels have included time spent as an international ad agency Creative Director, a professor at both the University of Washington Masters Degree Graduate Program, the Alberta College of Art & Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts) for 10+ years, and the founding partner of two successful design studios. He was previously the Creative Director for Bill Gates’ media licensing company, Corbis (and Veer), where he led a network of creative teams in Calgary, Seattle, China, and London, which produced all marketing and advertising assets for the corporation’s four global brands. Currently he is a part of the amazing Amazon Design Community as the Principal Creative Director of Amazon Music.
Frank J. Martinez is founder of The Martinez Group PLLC, a Brooklyn-based law firm specializing in intellectual property protection. A former designer and Design Patent Examiner, Martinez earned a BFA in Fine Art from Pratt Institute in New York and served as Production Director for Landor Associates prior to attending law school. Having worked closely with design professionals for many years in both design and legal capacities, Martinez understands firsthand the business and intellectual property issues faced by designers.
Sharon Oiga holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University, and BFAs in Graphic Design & Photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). At multidisciplinary design firms, including Studio/lab Chicago, she specialized in identity, brand strategy, publication design, and packaging with collaborators in science, education, arts, health, and business. Currently an Associate Professor and Chair of Graphic Design at UIC, Sharon’s work — and her students’ coursework — is consistently recognized through awards, publications, exhibitions, and funding. A two-time recipient of major funding by Sappi Ideas That Matter, Sharon was also honored to receive the student-voted Silver Circle Teaching Award. She has written about her teaching in Designer Magazine, a UCDA publication. In addition to SOTA, she serves as a Director of the Chicago Design Archive.
Christopher Slye is a type designer, developer and consultant living in the San Francisco Bay Area. From 1997 to 2020, he was a member of Adobe’s type team, beginning in type production and eventually managing all type-related business and licensing for the company. He was SOTA board chairman 2013–2015, and is a member of the board of directors for the Letterform Archive.
Neil Summerour obsessively creates letters. His Positype foundry carries the flag for his typefaces while Swash & Kern allows him to put a face to much of his custom lettering. As equally comfortable looping around with corporate commissions as he is personal projects and foundry releases, he is always at home in the studio. He teaches, lectures, workshops, mentors, and loves type and lettering. He’s a maker with Fairgoods, a maker of bad jokes, and a devoted follower of creativity. He lives in Georgia with his family, with always one foot in Japan.
About the Friends
Nick Di Stefano is a Boston-based experience designer and consultant specializing in helping teams adopt iterative and human-centered processes to build complex systems and applications. With a background in installation and public art, he’s fascinated by the intersection of design, technology, and people. He’s a volunteer product designer and manager for US Digital Response and has been organizing the Boston chapter of Action Design since 2014. He will always say yes to coffee.
Ian Van Mater is a part time designer and letterpress printer with a degree in Visual Communications from Washington University in St. Louis. He currently serves as President of the Board of the Letterpress Depot, a non profit working to restore a 1915 train depot into a letterpress museum and community printshop. His day job is consultative sales for Apple, helping simplify technology buying decisions for customers. He collects books and vinyl, plays disc golf, drinks black coffee, and primarily hangs out with his cat, Brutus. He maintains several obsessions including typography, world travel, the 80s, and mid century design. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado.
About SOTA
The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, study, and support of type, its history and development, its use in the world of print and digital imagery, its designers, and its admirers.