Eddie Opara is an interactive and graphic designer. Opara's dazzling multidisciplinary range combines technology-based wizardry with solid graphic chops. He is traditionally-trained graphic designer and a self-taught software developer with a perfectly tuned eye and keenly strategic mind.
Born in 1972, Opara grew up in London and attended the London College of Printing. After the London College of Printing, Opara headed to Yale's graduate school of graphic design, where he received his MFA in 1997. He immediately realized that he wanted to reach beyond print design. Opara veered out into the burgeoning field of interactive design, technology and research. He worked for a company named ATG, which was populated by MIT Media Lab grads, then moved to Imaginary Forces, where he focused on electronic environments and motion graphics. He was then recruited by his former professor at Yale, Michael Rock, to work at 2x4, where Opara was finally able to bridge his print and new media personalities into beautiful work for Vitra and Prada.
He left 2x4 to start his own firm - Map Office, where he could also introduce self-initiated projects into the fold. He gracefully moved from creating graphic identities for institution like Brooklyn Museum and the UCLA Architecture and Urban Design School to building Web sites for firms like the Architectural Research Office to programming motion graphic walls for the Morgan Stanley building in Times Square.
Opara's company has also developed technology products like a visualization software system named View for the ad agency JWT, to use in analyzing the effectiveness of the brands it manages. His clients have included the Menil Foundation, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Queens Museum of Art, the Mori Art Museum, JWT, Vitra, Prada, St. Regis Hotels, the Corcoran Group, Morgan Stanley, New York University, UCLA, Grimshaw Architects etc
Opara has won numerous awards including a Gold Cube from the Art Directors Club and honors from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and I.D. magazine. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and has appeared in publications such as Archis, Surface, Graphis and I.D.
Opara recently became the 17th and newest partner of Pentagram. Pentagram is the world's largest independent design consultancy.
Watch Eddie Opara (YouTube)
Sources: Creative Review, Fastcodesign, Pentagram
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