2008 Fellow Award & Local Legend Recipients

AIGA Fellow 2008: Scott Gericke
president, designlab, inc

Scott Gericke, a St. Louis native, studied graphic design at Missouri State University and received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining designlab,inc he held senior design positions at XPLANE Corp., Kiku Obata & Company and Falk Harrison Creative. He is a former lecturer of design at Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and most recently Design Director of the Visual Communications Research Studio there.

At designlab,inc, Scott is responsible for leading projects focused on identity design, publication design and environmental design. He has partnered with many notable clients including Ameren Corporation, Brown Shoe Company, Discovery Networks International, Monsanto, PaineWebber, Parents as Teachers National Center, St. Louis Children's Hospital, Sprint, Salvation Army and Washington University in St. Louis to name a few.

Scott's work has been recognized by numerous organizations and publications including the International Association of Business Communicators, the Ad Club of St. Louis, Mohawk Paper Mills, Mead Paper, Annual Report 100, Printing Industries of America, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), Communication Arts, Sign Business Magazine, American Corporate Identity 15, 2001 & 2002, The Big Book of Logos, The Big Book of Corporate Identity Design and LogoLounge III and IV among others.

Scott has been very active in the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) St. Louis chapter, having served in varying capacities since 1989. He was director of Membership, Education and the Design Show from 1990-1994 and went on to serve as president from 1994 to 1997. He currently participates in design critiques and charettes and presents case studies of his projects to students in design programs throughout the bi-state area.

Local Legend: Karen Handelman
president, 501creative, inc.

Karen is the president and candy bowl filler at 501creative. She takes that job very seriously...especially the candy part.

After receiving a BFA in graphic design from the University of Michigan, Karen joined the corporate design world in Chicago. It was a great place to be 20-something, but her candy bowl was not quite filled. So she and her husband, Marc Hirshman, moved down south for a year to volunteer full time with Habitat for Humanity. That year with Habitat proved to be career-changing and Karen spent much of the year trying to figure out how to combine her love of design and nonprofits. Upon their return to the Midwest, she founded 501creative.

That was 1995. Since then, 501creative has grown from a one-person shop operating from a back bedroom in Karen's apartment to a 10-person staff which will soon move to a new 3,500 square-foot space in the U. City Loop. Through all the growth and change, 501's sole focus has been nonprofit organizations, turning what was once thought of as only pro-bono work into a thriving business.

501's client list includes both large and small nonprofits, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Humane Society of Missouri to small environmental groups and social service agencies. What drives her and the rest of the 501 team is the knowledge that they help nonprofits look and sound as powerful as the work they do.

Today, Karen works on keeping the candy bowl filled at 501....literally and figuratively. Outside of 501, she has held several nonprofit board positions including five years with AIGA St. Louis...two years as president. She is currently on the board of Camp for all Kids, is active in the Flynn Park PTO, and spends a crazy amount of time driving daughters Abby and Emily to gymnastics practice. Karen and Marc celebrated their 40th birthdays with an adventure to Tanzania last year. She wishes she could say they got to the summit of Kilimanjaro...but they actually had to turn around at 15,200 feet due to altitude sickness. Or maybe it was because it was the lack of chocolate on the mountain.

Local Legend: John Celuch
president, Inlandesign

Celuch has worked as a creative director and designer for 40 years, producing identity programs, advertising, and award-winning marketing communications materials for clients throughout the country. After working as a designer for distinguished architects William Flippo and Harris Armstrong, and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, he established Inlandesign in 1976. For the past 32 years, he and his firm have won TAM, Flair, Addy and other prestigious awards for creative excellence. Inlandesign has been honored with the Illinois Governor’s Tourism Award for four consecutive years. In addition, the firm’s work has been published nationally.

A 37-year resident of Edwardsville, IL, Celuch has been actively involved in numerous community projects. He is an author of the city’s Historic Preservation Ordinance and, as past-president and four-term director of the Edwardsville YMCA, has created promotional materials which helped the organization raise nearly $8 million. Celuch’s firm has also developed materials that have been instrumental in assisting many other civic and cultural groups conduct successful fundraising campaigns. In addition, Celuch is nationally renown for his photographs of the work of architect Louis Sullivan, many of which have been published or exhibited throughout the Midwest.