Rachel D Abrams Email & Phone Number

New York | London

Turnstone Consulting frames opportunities and creates possibilities in product, service and experience design to set designers in the right direction and drive appropriate implementation. Focused on establishing the strategic foundations of projects upfront, these robust discovery and definition efforts lead clients to:• Operate with confidence | See, articulate and navigate their own daily dynamics • Manage effectively | Make better-informed daily and strategic decisions with clearer insight• Respond to change appropriately | Manage planned change, mitigate unplanned disruptions • Stay relevant | Spot opportunities to improve existing and invent new offerings • Stay afloat | Save time, money, expand market share, support employees, project teams• Meet people’s needs | Enhance everyday life in public places and digital spacesProject highlights:Legible complexity• Amnesty International | Graphic facilitator, Human Rights Education Conference, Senegal• Design Trust for Public Space | Fellow/co-editor, Roads Forward report on NY's cab industry• Pentagram | Lead strategist | Oculus VR, On Being, Santander, NMHC.org, others• United Nations | Graphic facilitator as the Sustainable Development Goals were adoptedNavigable places• Design/Relief | Originator | AIGA NY's Artplace-funded response to superstorm Sandy • Queens Museum | Identity and way-finding strategist for capital renovation/expansion program• Walk NYC | Special Advisor, lead researcher, New York's citywide, multimodal wayfinding programVisible futures• Karsan Automotive | Consultant, shortlisted Taxi of Tomorrow program entry, connected cabs• Open Society Foundations | Fellow, film-maker, Technology and the Future of Work program• Rockefeller/Municipal Arts Society | Fellow, graphic facilitator, urban resilience conferenceTurnstone is at work in 2021+ but accepted no clients in 2012 while Rachel was advising on Walk NYC, nor in 2017-20, while consulting at Arup.

New York, United States

New York

Teaching systems design, service design, civics x design, visual literacy to graduate students in the following MFA programs at SVA, New York:• Products of Design MFA program (2015-22)• Interaction Design | Design for Social Innovation | Visual Narrative MFA programs (2009-15)

Greater New York City Area

Led the strategic design consulting team in Arup Foresight, Research and Innovation in the Americas. Secretary to the Arup Global Digital Executive.• Consulted on projects to expand and upgrade Delta Air Lines Terminal C at La Guardia Airport, to improve Massachusetts regional commuter rail services, to contribute to Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities• Awarded one of the largest research grants in the Americas region to map an information architecture of aviation operations• Creative directed multi-disciplinary consulting team to produce "Sounds of the Future City" for "The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility", 2018-19 exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. Now in the Smithsonian collection. • Visualized proof of concept scenarios for Acorn, a new form of subway train communication (see acorntrainsystems.com)• Promoted internal/client understanding of strategic design approaches to shaping the built environment• Drafted Arup's enterprise-wide communications on data-enabled digital transformation programs

New York City

As Special Advisor to PentaCityGroup, the design consortium responsible for the New York Department of Transportation's Walk NYC pedestrian wayfinding system for New York's five boroughs, Rachel led user research and developed content standards for the project. Versions of the base map now appear on city streets as walking and bike share signage, New York's official printed foldout tourist map, on city parks signage, and on Select Bus Service route guides. PentaCityGroup was a joint venture between City ID, Pentagram Design, RBA, T-Kartor, Billings Jackson. More about the project process: http://www.turnstoneconsulting.com/work/walk-nyc/http://www.printmag.com/featured/urban-cartography-curated/

Teaching graduate seminars to a class of 18 students, on mapping and designing services for public space.

Greater New York City Area

Co-edited, co-authored widely acclaimed "Taxi07: Roads Forward", published by the Design Trust for Public Space, in partnership with the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission in 2007. This strategy report's insights foresaw Uber and led to the introduction of the green street hail cabs to Brooklyn, Queens and upper Manhattan. Its recommendations also informed specifications for NYC's 2010-2014 ambitious "Taxi of Tomorrow" program.http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/taxi_book.pdf

New York City

Content strategy for interactive media in award-winning branded environments. Client projects included: • Bell Canada's Technosport, 2010 Winter Olympics sponsorship promo, cross-Canada roadshow• Intel at CES 2006, Las Vegas• Samsung Experience flagship store in the Time Warner Center, New York• Ford Motor Company, Johnson & Johnson | Brand environment strategy

Information architecture, site strategy, consensus-building and setting design, technology and brand standards for ibm.com, one of the largest e-commerce sites on the Web. Specialized in developing interfaces for search, registration and personalization.

United Kingdom

• Dynamic Diagrams | Freelance designer (2000)• Nokia Global Experience Group | Graduate intern (1999)• BBC Political Research Unit | General election | Broadcast/online assistant (1997)• The Economist | The World in 1997 | Deputy Editor (1996)• Institute of Public Policy Research | Intern, Social Justice Commission Report (1993-4)

Ma

Ma (Cantab)