Photo by Brad Bartholomew

AIGA Fellow 2015

Ellen was born in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, a town with the tagline: Where art is a tradition. That tradition clearly was in Ellen’s DNA from Day 1. She pursued every art and craft project imaginable growing up, even redesigning her cursive handwriting, much to her family’s amazement. Ellen earned her BFA in Graphic Design at Michigan State University before heading to Colorado. Her first Denver job—designing posters for rock and roll promoter Barry Fey—was augmented by freelance work for metro businesses, ad agencies and design firms. In 1990, she launched EBD. Ellen has served as a vice-president of AIGA Colorado and serves on its advisory board. She’s also a past board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver. Nationally, Graphic Design USA has featured Ellen as a person to watch.