Metropolis announces its second annual Game Changers issue, hitting newsstands later this month. The publication will hone in on 12 individuals breaking through conventions in a variety of disciplines including architecture, real estate, business, graphic design, typography, healthcare, technology and education.
"Our class of 2012 is a diverse lot, but its members share an important trait: their community-based work has broader implications for the world at large, demonstrating the power of design to forge real change," says Executive Editor, Martin C. Pedersen.
In addition, the magazine has teamed up with Design Within Reach (DWR) in New York City for a celebratory event honoring these notable leaders.
The Game Changing Line-up:
Pete Balik, the Slovak graphic designer and typographer, helped launch a revolution in the way web sites are designed with his type foundry Typotheque, and he's expanding the availability of digital fonts in other, under-served languages worldwide.
Mia Birk, president of Alta Planning and Design, is bringing bike-sharing to the United States. Alta Bicycle Share started in Portland and will come to New York in 2012.
Vishaan Chakrabarti, the real estate developer, architect, city planner, and educator might well become New York's first Indian-American mayor one day.
Tim Duggan, the landscape architect now on board with Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation, is using state-of-the-art water remediation methods that could serve as a case study for a future of rising sea levels.
John Edelman, the president and CEO of DWR, has turned around the company and is investing in American design by working with young designers to produce their work for the mass market.
Ruth Finkelstein, the senior vice president for policy and planning of the New York Academy of Medicine, has created "Aging Improvement Districts" that provide a model for how communities can address the needs of aging populations everywhere.
Rob Kalin, the founder and former CEO of Etsy, helped launch the now-thriving world of online retail communities that are enabling individual designers to market their work to a global audience.
Laura Kurgan and Sarah Williams, directors of Columbia's Spatial Information Design Lab, are interpreting complex data to promote social change.
Michael Maltzan, the Los Angeles architect, is pushing the boundaries of what public housing and public spaces can be.
Katie Salen, professor of games and digital media at DePaul University, and former director of the Center for Transformative Media at Parsons the New School for Design, serves as the executive director of a non-profit called the Institute of Play that is focused on games and learning.
Mirko Zardini, the director and chief curator of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, has put on a series of groundbreaking shows in recent years, provoking fresh thinking about the built environment.
