Founder, Creature, LLC
Maureen founded Creature in 2003, a team of industrial designers who create innovative solutions for consumer, medical, and commercial products. The firm is focused on using design to create compelling user experiences, as well as creating cohesive visual design language strategies to make their clients’ brands memorable and distinctive. Through the years Creature has won many design awards, including multiple prestigious IDEA awards.
Maureen Carroll graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1985 with a BFA in Industrial Design. She began her career designing medical and industrial equipment at Daedalus Design in Pittsburgh PA.
In 1992 Maureen joined Inno, a product development firm in Atlanta, GA. At Inno, Maureen developed medical and consumer products for international markets. In 1997, as Design Manager, she built and led the design team at inno.
Maureen joined Sundberg-Ferar in 1999. As Product Development Manager, she led an integrated team of researchers, designers, and engineers to design successful kitchen appliances, home electronics, medical products, and consumer goods.
Her work has been published in ID Magazine, Popular Science, and Time Magazine. She holds numerous design patents, and is an active member of the Industrial Designers Society of America.
Maureen played a key role in bolstering support for IDSA’s Atlanta Chapter.
Statement of Candidacy
I have been a member of IDSA since graduating from RIT in 1985, and later became Secretary/Treasurer for the Western PA chapter. IDSA has been a trusted resource throughout my career: an organization I turned to for inspiration and a means to have energizing conversations with a diverse set of designers, with whom I might otherwise have never had the opportunity to connect. I’ve attended conferences, participated in portfolio reviews, been a juror for the IDSA Student Merit Award competition, mentored students and helped organize (and be a studio host for) the Design Studio Tours for the 2017 International Design Conference in Atlanta.
Being Secretary/Treasurer on IDSA’s Board of Directors is an opportunity to give back to the organization at a higher level. My main interest would be to examine how IDSA uses its funding and influence, and to use design thinking to best align financial expenditures with the interests and needs of the membership. As the founder/owner of Creature, a design consultancy in Atlanta, I’ve had to learn about the financial and business side of industrial design and have managed to sustain the company’s performance through the 2007-2009 recession and now, a global pandemic. I would bring the same open-mindedness, creativity and enthusiasm I’ve brought to this role to the position of Secretary/Treasurer on the IDSA Board.
