Cabengo

Cabengo's selective practice ensures exceptional work and a high level of client service; principals are always hands-on, and project teams are carefully tailored to match client requirements. For larger projects, we draw from a specialized community of artists, architects, designers, illustrators, engineers, photographers, video editors, writers, animators, and musicians. Whether the team is composed of three or thirty, collaboration drives our process. This discipline of creative exchange creates a wildly generative and nurturing context for inventing new forms and producing distinctive and effective communication.

Hillary Leone, President and Creative Director
Cabengo's founder and principal, Hillary Leone, is an artist, writer, and producer with more than twenty years of creative, management and technology experience. As a seasoned professional with hands-on experience leading projects for large institutional non-profits, she brings strong creative and project management skills to the team. She is a keen communicator and active listener, a synthetic thinker who can weave disparate ideas into a practical work plan. Hillary's strategic and creative leadership informs and guides every Cabengo project.

Prior to founding Cabengo, Hillary had been an internationally-recognized installation and new media artist. She is a two-time NEA grant recipient and Whitney Biennial artist, with experience in a broad range of materials. Her work, widely represented in private and museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, has been exhibited in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and has been featured in print, television, and radio. Hillary was an adjunct professor and visiting critic at the Rhode Island School of Design for four years and has lectured widely in the US and abroad. Ms. Leone holds a BA in English and Semiotics from Brown University; a BFA in Photography from California Institute of the Arts; and is a graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in Studio Art.

Jenna Park, Art Director, Designer
Jenna Park is an artist and designer with more than thirteen years of experience in interaction and graphic design. She has worked as an Art Director and Designer at Cabengo since 2000. She has had key roles in the design and creative development of Cabengo's portfolio, including websites for the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Our Courts, and New York University. Her work is distinguished for its elegant aesthetic, backed by a keen understanding of information and user interface design. Jenna designed a suite of web applications for SalesCrunch, named one of 11 NYC Start-Ups to Watch in 2011 by The Next Web; created interface designs for OneWire, named by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of America's Most Promising Startups; and created iPhone app designs for Paul Frank, Angelina Ballerina and Thomas the Engine brands for CuriousBrain. Additionally, she has worked with agencies, such as C&G Partners, Tribal DDB, Calvin Klein, Oxygen Media, and DailyCandy. In 2008, she founded a Brooklyn-based bakery called Whimsy & Spice with her pastry chef husband. Education: Fine Art, the Cooper Union School of Art; BA, Music Composition and Technology, Evergreen State College; MPS, Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York University.

Darina Karpov, Designer
Darina Karpov is an artist and designer with ten years of experience developing fresh, sophisticated graphics for cultural and educational clients. A versatile designer with extensive experience in type and color, she has worked at many design studios, including Pentagram, NY (with Michael Bierut); Anthony McCall Associates., NY; and Rutka Weadock Design, Baltimore. Her design projects include the Yale Tercentennial Archive (CD-ROM), History of Science at Yale (hard cover book), and the Yale School of Architecture View Book; a Flash-based interactive annual report for MSK Cancer Center; and print collateral, website, and motion graphics for the Media that Matters Film Festival. In her fine artwork, she creates intricate hyper narratives that reference a range of sources, real and imagined, from soviet commercial arts and medieval miniatures to renaissance and baroque etchings. Awards include the 2001 Bradbury Thompson Memorial Prize and the 2001 Carl Purlington Rollins Fellowship, both from the Yale School of Art. Her work was published in the 2001 New York Type Directors Club Design Annual, and 2000 the Communication Arts Graphic Design Annual. Education: Costume Design, Moscow Institute of Technology, St Petersburg, Russia; BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (studied with Abbot Miller); MFA, Graphic Design, Yale University School of Art.

Catarina Mota, Information Architect/ Usability Specialist
Catarina Mota has 10 years of experience in information architecture, interaction design, and rich media content for both the web and physical environments. She has served as lead information architect and creative director on numerous projects for museums, companies, universities, and governmental institutions based in Portugal, New York and Los Angeles. She has worked with Cabengo since 2001, as lead architect, usability specialist, and interaction designer. In addition to her hands-on work in interactive technology, she is a Research Fellow of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and a Visiting Scholar at ITP-NYU. Her research focuses on participatory culture, open access, knowledge sharing and maker culture, more specifically in the fields of digital fabrication and hardware development. She is co-founder of openmaterials.org and altlab.org, as well as member of the AZ Labs Network board of directors. Ms. Mota holds a BA in Communication Sciences, New University of Lisbon, Portugal (FCSH-UNL); an MPS, Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York University and is currently a Ph.D candidate at FCSH-UNL.

Fiona Brandon, Information Architect/ Usability Specialist
Fiona Brandon is an information architect and usability specialist, with nine years of experience designing and testing internet applications. At the Scient Corporation, Fiona served as the lead information architect and usability specialist, developing Internet applications for multinational investment banks and retailers. She also worked as an interface designer for MusicNet, and a creative producer and content writer for AOL's Thrive On-line. She has served as an information architect and usability specialist for new media agencies, including Organic, Frog Design, Ruder Finn Interactive, and the Deutsch advertising agency. Prior to entering the interactive field, Fiona worked as a print journalist and radio talk show host for KUSF in San Francisco. Education: BA, English and Creative Writing, Brown University; MPS, Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York University.