PETER KUCHNICKI

Peter is President and Founder of the Spark Design Awards, a unique competition that encourages fresh thinking and innovation across all disciplines and levels of expertise. Spark emphasizes “…that the necessary mission of contemporary design is to improve the quality of the human condition and environment. It must contribute to happiness and progress and sustain and preserve our Earth's limited resources.”

The Spark Awards competitions have grown into four annual events, with significant numbers of entries and winners from Asia, Europe and South America, as well as the States. The Spark Competitions now include Spark:Pro Award, Spring and Fall Spark:Concept Awards and their latest, ground-breaking event, Go:Spark, a competition which highlights advances in green transportation.

Peter has created and produced over 85 major events, exhibitions, seminars, conferences and competitions in the areas of design, marketing, communications and creativity. He produced the GOING Conference on alternative transportation, the WonderBrands, Wires & Tires, Business UnUsual, Net@Work and Metropolis West conferences, LatinExpo—the First Hispanic Marketing Exposition, the extensive Adweek Creative Seminars and Creative Shootout Competitions, Creativity (Canada), the Home Office Magazine Conferences, Creative Media Awards, Malta Creative Marketing conferences, Creativa Awards (collaboration in Mexico) and over 1,200 workshops in the Adweek Seminar Series.

Peter began his career in 1977 with the launch and publication of Cinegram Magazine, concerning film and pioneering coverage of the New Media, and the Slicker Metrotab, an entertainment and events newspaper covering the Detroit-Ann Arbor scenes. Both publications won positive critical reviews and national exposure. He moved to NYC into positions at Electronic News and MISWeek and participated in the launch year of the technologically-advanced newspaper, USA Today. At the invitation of legendary editor Clay Felker, he moved into new business development at ASM Communications, home of Adweek, MarketingWeek and MediaWeek magazines. As Special Projects Executive Director for 8 years, he immersed himself in the rapid changes taking place in the wide world of communications.

On the design front, Peter has collaborated with many hundreds of renowned talents including Kit Hinrichs, Paula Scher, Richard Wilde, Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser, to help create beautiful and award-winning productions and publications. He founded Designing Worlds, a sustainable design and architectural competition and the 9.11 Tribute Archive. Peter has served on the Hewlett-Packard One Voice Awards Jury, and on the Kapok Design Award Jury in Guangzhou, China.