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1.12.2006

For Immediate Release 1/12/06
For more information, contact:
Jolene Keach : 217.351.6700

SpinLight Makes National List of "People to Watch in 2006."



Champaign, Illinois, January 5, 2006—Staley Road is about as far from Madison Avenue as you can get. There are no skyscrapers. Or neon lights. On a hot summer day, you'll find more corn stalks than coffee bars. And yet, on this quiet back road at the edge of the city lies a graphic design studio that's making national waves. And Madison Avenue is taking notice.

For more than 40 years, Graphic Design USA has tracked trends in the design community. Each January, the publication's highly anticipated "People to Watch" edition throws the national spotlight on new design talent emerging on the national scene. And this year, the spotlight has landed on Champaign. For Matt Hutton and Debby Winter, founders of Spinlight Studio, their inclusion on the list of People to Watch in 2006 was a career-defining moment. But for the editors of GD USA, the choice was a given.

"Every January, we focus on a handful of people who are shaping the design profession, producing notable work, making news, influencing others, leading the community," explains Gordon Kaye, editor and publisher of GD USA. And in 2005, Splinlight made national news. They dominated the American Graphic Design Awards, taking home more awards than any other design firm in the country. But more notably, they did it with small accounts, proving that great design is more about big ideas than big budgets.

Spinlight is a company overflowing with big ideas. So much so that they launched a new company in 2005 to market ideas that venture beyond pen and paper into actual product development. The new company—appropriately dubbed Spinoff—already has its first product which they call STICK, an upscale CD storage device. Other product ideas may soon follow, but for now their primary focus will continue to be in advertising and marketing, where they've already built their considerable reputation. Over the next five years, they hope to expand their client roster with a few national accounts—a task that should prove easier, now that they've established the fact that there's design talent to be had outside major markets like New York, LA and Chicago. "Great design can happen anywhere," explains Winter. "And we want the world to know that a lot of it happens here."

About Spinlight

Since founding Spinlight in 2000, co-founders Debby Winter and Matt Hutton have won numerous awards for design excellence, including 22 American Graphic Design Awards. Located on South Staley Round in Champaign, the company offers a full range of print, broadcast and digital marketing services for a broad range of clients.