good cheer materials Photoshop (Adobe) • papers, elements and alphas from “Vintage Holiday Collection” (ScrapGirls.com) • Hamburger Menu font • Photo Credit: David Gunkel

ann hetzel gunkel

chicago, Illinois

Ann Hetzel Gunkel is the founder and head designer of designbutcher.com and Product Designer for Scrap Girls, a digital scrapbooking site. Her foray into graphic design and digital scrapping began when her multimedia creations collided with her passion for documenting her spectacular toddler son. As a fortieth birthday present to herself, Ann decided to take up digital scrapbooking. Despite her fear that scrapbooking would mean cartoon stickers and "Holly Hobbie" graphic design, she realized there were no rules and that she could "do it digi." She suddenly found herself creating mixed media digital memory art and founding a design firm. She considers her work to be scrapping with an urban edge.

Ann is an award-winning digital artist, educational multimedia designer, published author, documentary photographer, and Professor of Cultural Studies at Columbia College Chicago. As a feminist scholar, Gunkel is intrigued by the meaning and importance of "women's arts & crafts." Scrapbooking began in the Victorian age as a way to keep homebound "proper" women busy. She loves turning that intention on its head! Ann considers computer scrapping to be postmodern storytelling for the digital age. It’s a way that women (and men) creatively document their lives, voices and values.

Her innovative digital scrapbook designs have been recognized by the major arts & crafts publishers in the field, appearing in Simple Scrapbooks, Creating Keepsakes, Legacy, Memory Makers, Woman's Day Scrapbooking, PaperKuts, Scrapbook Trends, NanC & Co and Cantata Books, and Scrap & The City: Scrapbooking for Urban Divas and Small Town Rebels (Soho Publishing 2006). Her digital artworks have been exhibited by A.R.C. Gallery in Chicago and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Gunkel is a public intellectual who has appeared frequently in national and local media on topics such as urban studies, Polish American life, media culture and women's crafts.