PEOPLE

Mies supervises new product development, product design, packaging and marketing campaigns. He is the author of Official Signs & Icons and co-authored the 4-volume series of best-selling design reference books, Design Elements – A Visual Reference, upon which his reference work Design Elements 5 by Ultimate Symbol is based. Mies is known for his expertise in developing non-verbal communication systems in the form of symbol sets for the transportation, hospitality, safety and health care sectors. AIGA Interview > 

In 2022 Mies authored, designed, and published VIEWPOINTS: 75 Years of the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). VIEWPOINTS celebrates the extraordinary lives & monumental work of Jefferson Lecture honorees over the last half century. 

Biographies of each of the 49 luminaries detail their origins, important work & awards, including excerpts from their Jefferson Lectures, plus extensive photos. This full-color 264-page clothbound book is available here >.

In 2018, Mies edited, designed and published, ELLA: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald. This meticulously researched book is illustrated with 280 photos of “First Lady of Song,” with artifacts from Ella's life and internationally acclaimed career spanning seven decades. The book is available with a 2-CD set of 39 studio and live tracks that were carefully selected by Ella expert / author Geoffrey Mark from all four of her major recording labels—Decca, Verve, Capitol and Pablo.  

Mies has enjoyed an extensive career in the design field, where his experience includes corporate identity, advertising, positioning, environmental and experiential design, wayfinding, and photography. He has been Design Director and Principal of Hora Associates since 1979. Earlier, Mies served on the design staffs of Chermayeff & Geismar Inc., Rudolph DeHarak Associates, and the Parsons / The New School Office of Publications, where he was apprenticed to Cipe Pineles Burtin, a prominent international designer elected to the Art Director's Hall of Fame. 

He received a BFA from The New School / Parsons School of Design, and did post-graduate work in publication design at Stanford University. Mies has served as an adjunct college professor of design and typography at Parsons, SUNY Purchase NY, and lectured in the Masters Design program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Frances has assisted with the editing, design and production of all Ultimate Symbol products, as well as the web site. She majored in arts at Hunter College in New York City. Since 1970, she has worked on a wide variety of packaging, publication design and promotional projects for companies including Milton Glaser, Inc,, Lee Vitale Design, Inc., Hokrein Studios, Norman Anderson, Hora Associates, and The New School/Parsons School of Design. 

While at Milton Glaser, Inc, she was production coordinator on the redesign of the Grand Union supermarket chain. In addition to being president of Bayard Hora Associates, Inc, which gave courses in business and personal management, she designed their NY office/course spaces and taught the curriculum. Pro-bono executive director of a non-profit organization, she currently maintains their web site, CureDrive.org, and produces their books and other content.

Richard was chief consultant for the creation of Design Elements – A Visual Reference. His decades of visual ephemera collecting was its inspiration. Furthermore, he was instrumental in the continued development of the books and eventual digital products. 

Richard had a long and distinguished career in packaging, interior and product design. He served as Art Director in such firms as Raymond Loewy, Georges Wilmet, Miles Grove, and Lee Vitale Associates. Richard also taught design at the college level. He had many accomplishments in the visual arts including architecture, interior, graphic and industrial design, painting, sculpture, ceramics, repoussé and stained glass, all of which he mastered passionately. Retrospection, a book celebrating his passionate life's work in the visual arts, was published in 2009 by Ultimate Symbol. Full Obit >

Lewis supervises operations, finance, marketing and distribution and collaborates on product development. He has decades of experience managing corporate finance and working with accounting firms and non-profits.