Tom Burchard is Vice President of Brand Experience at Continuum, the largest privately held strategic design consultancy in the U.S. In his role, Tom leads the company's brand experience team in the use of human-centered methodologies to explore and deliver branded encounters. Tom has built an interdisciplinary team of brand strategists, communications designers and retail specialists in an effort to better assist his clients in the definition and translation of their brand attributes into meaningful product, service and environment encounters.

Mostly recently, Tom has completed a ground-up rebranding and positioning program for a national restaurant chain, assisted LL Bean in defining a retail expansion strategy, and worked with Sprint and Nextel to bring these merged brands to a common retail voice.

An interdisciplinary designer, Tom studied architecture at the University of Minnesota, and received a BS in Industrial Design from the University of Arts in Philadelphia. He is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and Design Management Institute (DMI); he holds over 25 patents.

 

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Individual cultures embody their ideology through various creative outlets such as music, literature, and arts and crafts.  From these origins of expression, a design influence is born. For India, diverse cultures and inspiration fuse meaning and significance into a cultural design persona that is constantly evolving - and quickly becoming one of the world’s most stimulating environments for creation and design.

 

Currently, the fabric of world markets has largely been the reflection of western design sensibilities, distorting international perceptions with a homogeneous and privileged sense of idealism. As emerging cultures ascend to a more visible place in this ever-changing global economy, India’s position as an influencer of design and innovation will be largely predicated on its ability to communicate a unique and compelling point-of-view.

 

As India reawakens and seeks it rightful place in the new global economy, it needs to succeed on its own terms by celebrating its own distinct design sensibilities. The key will be avoiding comparisons to and against western approaches and interpreting India’s unique wealth of tradition in a modern and relevant presentation that will spark new dialogue, surface new insight and serve a more accurate indication of the culture’s creative strengths.