VP, CO-HEAD OF DESIGN, COLLE MCVOY, MINNEAPOLIS MN

Diana “DQ” Quenomoen leads a multidisciplinary team of design brilliance dedicated to building the brand operating systems that modern brands need to live, breathe, behave, and thrive. Her work blends strategic storytelling with distinct, scalable design systems that define how identity shows up in behavior, emotion, product, motion, and place. If a brand is a world, DQ makes sure it has gravity.

She believes design is a connective force and no, not the Star Wars kind. It is the bridge between strategy and feeling, clarity and expression, business ambition and human experience. Her passion lies in creating immersive brand worlds that stretch far beyond logos and colors. She creates worlds that act, respond, invite participation, and evolve alongside culture, technology, and the people they serve. And yes, she loves how those words rhyme right off the tongue.

Over her career, she has shaped brand evolutions, experiential environments, and full-funnel campaigns for brands both iconic and emerging, always with a focus on humanity, distinction, and future readiness.

Whether she is crafting a long-term vision with her team, mentoring emerging designers, or helping a brand rediscover its soul, DQ is guided by the belief that Design should create vivid, sensorial experiences that reveal who a brand truly is, what it stands for, how it behaves, and how it brings people in. Her work aims to ignite emotion, spark clarity like a firework, and build brand worlds that feel alive and built to endure.

Between now and 2030, which specific skills, technologies, or priorities will matter most in shaping the future of graphic design?

The future of design belongs to those unicorns who can dance between emerging technologies like AI, generative tools, motion systems and spatial computing, and the one thing technology will never replicate: the human heart. Designers will need to build brand operating systems that scale across behaviors, senses, and experiences, not just static assets. As brands show up in more places and move faster than ever, our job is to design worlds that adapt, evolve, and communicate with clarity and emotion in every moment. Tech will accelerate us and humanity will anchor us.

What principles guide your design decisions?

I design from the inside out. Everything begins with the core of the brand’s world, the emotional operating system that shapes how it behaves, feels, and shows up. Every choice must ladder back to that foundation and express it distinctively. I’m guided by clarity, culture and a deep respect for human experience. The work must function beautifully, but it also needs to move people. I aim for systems that are flexible, future-ready and rooted in purpose, always allowing space for curiosity, surprise and delight.