Meet the 2018 Team.

Our creative interns are the heartbeat of Marion Design Co. Through their unique culture of collaboration and risk-taking, they foster both empathy and synergy to make a positive and lasting impact in Marion. With experience ranging in Social Impact Design, Place and Space Design, Graphic Design, Visual Art, Branding/Identity development, Strategic Communication, our interns are ready to take on the unknown. This group works hard and laughs harder while using their deep and wide variety of skills to serve the people of Marion.

Luke Anspach
Co-Founder and Senior Digital Designer

Luke Anspach is an Instructor of Design in the Division of Art + Design at Indiana Wesleyan University. A creative director, digital designer, and brand strategist with a focus on user experience, user interface, and digital brand design, much of his work deals with tourism, economic development, and community-based entities. Since starting his professional practice in 2008, Luke has worked on national and international award-winning projects.

In 2012, Luke founded The Guild, an organization based in Redlands, California, that builds community between creatives by providing connecting points. In 2015, he co-founded Marion Design Co, a community-based creative studio with an emphasis on positive social impact in the City of Marion, Indiana. The studio is primarily made up of local professional volunteers and student interns.

When not teaching or working, Luke travels around the world exploring and studying cultures, backpacking through wilderness, and connecting people.

Herb Vincent Peterson
Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer

Herb Vincent Peterson is an award-winning multidisciplinary creative director, design researcher, and educator. With a background in strategic branding and social design practices, Peterson’s research lies at the intersection of community and design pedagogy aimed to bring sustainable change in rural America. He has been able to work with a variety of towns and cities, universities and colleges, to the wide spectrum of not-for-profit organizations and major retail companies, ranging from Guggenheim Museum, The Wexner Center for the Arts, Gap Inc (Old Navy, Gap), Kroger Super Markets, Indianapolis Arts Council, Urban Outfitters, and many more! Among other things, Peterson filled the role of executive director of Open and Build, a not-for-profit design network that was originally started in Columbus Ohio in 2009.

A passionate educator and education activist, Peterson co-founded Marion Design Co in 2016 with the aim to help the community of Marion connect to sustainable and impact driven design. Peterson has taught design and fine art to numerous students at universities including, Herron School of Art and Design, Ohio Dominican University, The Ohio State University, and Indiana Wesleyan University where he is an associate professor and coordinator of the Graphic Design program. Peterson holds a BFA from Herron School of Art and Design where he studied Photography and Visual Communication Design, an MFA emphasizing in interdisciplinary research, focusing visual design and education from The Ohio State University, and currently is working on a Doctorate in Design at North Carolina State University in the College of Design.

Wendy Puffer
Co-Founder & Chief Placemaking Officer

Wendy Puffer is a social designer and registered interior designer whose career is grounded in the belief that design can change people's lives. She is passionate about teaching students the importance of faith integration as designers. Her knowledge of the field of design and passion for working with college students is grounded in over 17 years experience conducting her own design business and 34 years training and instructing undergraduates.

The communication of what is seen and unseen (future design possibilities) is what energizes possibilities and new methods of functioning. When designing, whether it be in the context of environmental design, spatial planning, work or family interaction, way-finding, interior design, graphics, or the multiple other platforms of design, Wendy is thinking of people through every stage of inspiration, ideation, and implementation.

Wendy's reason for creating stems from how she views design as a way to serve people. Wendy revels in a healthy balance of good design and personal preference supported by a fulcrum of truth. She has experience working collaboratively with clients on projects ranging from community design to interior design and regularly involves students and graduates in design projects.

Henrik Soderstrom
Chief Ideation Designer and Making Coordinator

Henrik Soderstrom is an artist, designer, and idea enthusiast. Raised in Rochester, NY by an exuberant Californian and a Swedish visionary, he grew up sanding historic floorboards and eating green peppers like apples from the vegetable garden. 

After absorbing inspiration and general excitement about life at the Rhode Island School of Design, he went on to work with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, designing the set for their production of Leyli & Majnun, which opened in 2009 at the Lincoln Center in New York, and creating album artwork for their Grammy-nominated recording Off the Map.

Henrik has enjoyed collaborating with the Society for Freshwater Science, the Music of Difference Project (designing the artwork for their Grammy-nominated album), the Knights Orchestra, the Attacca Quartet, Thomas Warfield, and FuturPointe dance to produce shows and performances. He has been an artist-in-residence with I-Park Enclave, Stonecry, and the Julia and David White Artist Colony, and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and now lives in Indiana with his brilliant wife Dottie, where they both teach at Indiana Wesleyan University.

Yeabsera Tabb
Placemaking Intern

Yeabi is a compassionate, creative, innovative, and teachable individual who loves to use her artistic gifts to serve others. She believes that genuine and meaningful relationships are created by listening and understanding perspectives outside of one’s own. She is driven by the empowering and transforming aspect of design. Yeabi believes that for change to occur through design, there needs to be a constant movement of expanding perspectives. As a Place-Making Design intern, she hopes to create a space that not only empowers people, but where stories, relationships, and listening are valued. Yeabi is not afraid to try new things and is constantly learning and listening. Along with art, Yeabi loves music and learning new things such as the ukulele, longboarding, and crocheting.

Grace Woodard
Visual Art and Graphic Design Intern

Grace is passionate about people, their stories, and their motivations. An Indiana resident for twenty years, she cares deeply about small-town stories and citizens. Grace considers individuality to be a key aspect of community, so intrepidly she infuses her own unique spark into everything she wears, says, or does. As such, she enjoys listening to electronic music while building tree houses. Grace appreciates how design can create flourishing and vibrant communities, and in the future, she hopes to use both design and art to challenge and encourage people across the globe. Grace is excited to be working, serving, and learning from the community of Marion this summer.