Visionaries! 2008 Award Presented at MAD’s Annual Gala

NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 12, 2008—Alan Siegel, Founder and Chairman of pioneering strategic brand consultancy Siegel+Gale, will receive the Museum of Arts and Design Visionaries! 2008 Award honoring outstanding individuals in the arts and industry. The Award will be presented this evening at the Museum’s annual benefit gala in New York.

“Over the past three decades, Alan Siegel has become one of the best-known figures in the branding business. He has achieved the stature of both pillar of the establishment and provocative iconoclast while building Siegel+Gale, a leading brand consultancy devoted to positioning global companies for competitive success,” says the Museum as reason for the Award.

“The Museum has played an important role in my life,” says Mr. Siegel. “It has been a privilege to have helped champion the new building campaign and expansion efforts. This is a milestone year for the Museum and a crowning moment in which to be honored.”

Mr. Siegel has a decade-long history of involvement with the Museum as a trustee, patron, and Chair of the Marketing Committee. In the past five years, he has worked to support the Museum’s capital campaign for its new facility as well as leading the efforts to reposition its international presence through innovative communication and marketing materials.

MAD Visionaries! Awards are presented each year to individuals whose achievements reflect the Museum’s mission to foster an enthusiastic appreciation of contemporary craft, decorative arts, and design, and their relations to fashion, architecture, interior design, and technology.

The Museum of Arts and Design opened its new facility, the Jerome and Simona Chazen Building, at 2 Columbus Circle in New York in September, 2008. The Museum is the country’s leading cultural institution dedicated to the collection and exhibition of contemporary objects created in a wide range of media, including clay, glass, wood, metal, and fiber.

The Museum expects to exceed 400,000 visitors in its first year. “Online access to its permanent collection, teacher training institute, and a virtual library of techniques will increase that number exponentially,” says Mr. Siegel.

###

About Alan Siegel

A pioneer of the branding industry and founder of brand strategy firm Siegel+Gale, Alan Siegel is also a well-known photographer (One Man's Eye: Photographs from the Alan Siegel Collection, Harry N. Abrams), and author (The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Markets, Lightbulb Press). As consultant, teacher, and commentator, Mr. Siegel’s influence extends to creating strategic branding programs for organizations such as 3M, American Express, AARP, the National Basketball Association (NBA), Caterpillar, The Girl Scouts, The New School, and CBS. He also serves on the boards of numerous business and cultural organizations, including the Museum of Arts and Design, American Institute of Graphic Arts, Design Management Institute, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Girls Inc., the Authors Guild Foundation, and the American Theater Wing, where he is a TONY Awards voter.

About Siegel+Gale

Siegel+Gale is a global strategic branding firm committed to building world-class brands through elegantly simple, unexpectedly fresh strategies, stories and experiences. With Simple is Smart as its operating philosophy, Siegel+Gale delivers powerful services in brand development, identity design, simplification, research and analytics, and digital strategy.

Since its founding by branding pioneer Alan Siegel in 1969, Siegel+Gale has helped drive business results for brands such as Aetna, American Express, Bank of America, China Youth Development Foundation, Dell, Dow Chemical Company, The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, The Internal Revenue Service, The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Microsoft, Motorola, Pfizer, SAP, Sony PlayStation, Yahoo! and the YMCA.

Siegel+Gale has offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Hamburg, Dubai, Shanghai and Beijing and strategic partnerships around the world as a member of the Omnicom Group of companies.

For more information please contact Gail Nelson at 212.453.0400 or gnelson@siegelgale.com.