Juan Velasco

Juan Velasco was the Art Director of National Geographic magazine from 2008 to 2014. Previous to National Geographic, he worked as a graphics artist for El Mundo (Spain) and as the Graphics Art Director for The New York Times.

In 2001, he founded his own consulting company, 5w Infographics, which is based in New York City, Washington D.C., and Madrid. Juan has won over a hundred Society of News Design and Malofiej awards (including the Best of Show Award in 2013), as well as awards from the Society of Publication Design and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist as part of a team of writers and visual journalists of The New York Times.

Juan has been a speaker at numerous design conferences, and is a consultant for The World Bank and other organizations.

Samuel Velasco

Samuel Velasco was one of the original founders of the daily newspaper El Mundo (Madrid), in 1989, whose art department quickly became the center of a “boom” of infographics in Europe. From 1990 to 1996 El Mundo was recognized with hundreds of awards by the Society for News Design. Samuel alone won more than thirty.

In 1996, Samuel moved to the U.S. and became an Art Director at Fortune magazine, where he was responsible for the design of features and department stories, while at the same time being heavily involved with the infographics department. During this time, Samuel also worked as a freelance infographic artist.