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Meaningful Design for the Common Good

Studio

Let's inform & inspire.

Hyperakt works with clients who fight for social justice, celebrate cultural diversity, advance the pursuit of knowledge, and share our entrepreneurial spirit.

Exceptional design isn't just about making things look pretty. It's about making them more meaningful, useful and engaging. It's about improving communication and capturing hearts and minds.

Hyperakt is an independent New York City design firm with a passion for creating work that effects change in the world around us.

Hyperaktivists


From Brooklyn with Love

Hyperakt's founding principals Deroy Peraza and Julia Vakser lead a tight-knit team with varied expertise and a passion for design.

  • Deroy Peraza

    Deroy Peraza

    Principal + Creative Director

    Originally from Havana, Cuba, Deroy founded Hyperakt in 2001 after studying Illustration at Parsons The New School for Design and has been designing brand identities, print campaigns and web presences for a wide variety of clients ever since.

    Deroy’s interest in bettering the world around him, in combination with his relentless optimism, is channeled through every project he touches. As a Creative Director, he can tap into a unique perspective and come up with something original, turning a concept on its head and impressing his clients and co-workers alike.

    Deroy lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Jenna. They love throwing dinner parties and backyard barbecues when Brooklyn warms up.
  • Julia Vakser

    Julia Vakser

    Principal + Creative Director

    Julia was born a realist in Ukraine and immigrated to New York City in her teens. She and Deroy met in their foundation class at Parsons and have been challenging each other ever since. She is a published illustrator, designer, wife and mother of two. An aspiring optimist, Julia is left surprisingly full of energy after splitting her time between being a mom and a designer extraordinaire.

    Reliable as clockwork, Julia is the grounding force of the studio. As Co-Creative Director and Principal, her training in illustration has been a continuous source of strength and inspiration as she fluidly carries Hyperakt’s aesthetic from one project to another. Julia tackles projects with a solid understanding that there is no perfect design, there is only the perfect answer to a client's current need.
  • Catherine Catanzaro

    Catherine Catanzaro

    Interactive Designer

    Cat graduated from the Design & Technology program at Parsons New School of Design, where she studied human-computer interaction and interface design with a concentration on dynamic narrative systems. She’s not messing around. Occasionally she shares Japanese death metal with the rest of the crew. She's also working on an epic Science Fiction novel that is sure to be made into a movie sometime soon.

    With an intense passion for interactive design and its potential to bring new levels of depth and meaning to the arts and education, Cat loves making good sense out of a tangle of code. She is an engineer, a designer and a writer all in one, and delivers code as flawless and efficient as her syntax.
  • Jason Lynch

    Jason Lynch

    Designer

    Jason moved to Brooklyn from Denver, Colorado five years ago to study Communication Design at the School of Visual Arts. A talented craftsman and designer, Jason thinks out of the box to push our collective learning and expand our vocabulary. Jason loves doing outdoorsy things but hates getting dirty. He lives in Brooklyn with his girlfriend Robin, a funny nurse with lots of gory work stories.

    Jason handles a wide range of design tasks, from logo design to print collateral and website design, and is involved in all phases of our projects, from concept development to production and pre-press. Jason solves the puzzles of our projects through meticulous patience. He exhausts every possible angle, solution and idea to be sure that our end result is unique and accomplishes the mission.

We Love Do Gooders

Nothing is more rewarding for designers than making great work for clients with meaningful missions. Hyperakt makes big agency branding experience accessible for brand savvy non-profit organizations.

    Non-Profit Brands View Work

    Big League Experience

    Advertising agencies, both large and small, regularly count on us for creative direction, concept development and design. Having worked closely with several agency partners, we are well versed on the agency process.

      Agencies View Work

      Recognize These Guys?

      Through our agency partners, we have worked on identity, print and web projects for various international brands in a wide range of industries.

        Global Brands View Work

        Enlightened Little Guys

        We know it's extremely difficult for small businesses to invest in professionally branding their companies, but here are a few examples of clients who believe it's a crucial step towards taking their businesses to the next level.

          Local Brands View Work

          Trophy Case

          Design Credentials

          Validation feels good. We value the respect of the design community. After pouring our hearts and souls into a project, nothing makes us smile like winning an award or seeing our work reproduced in a beautiful design annual.

          The Studio

          The Magic Happens Here

          Our Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn studio is our little oasis in New York City. The space is designed for constant collaboration. The backyard is all about lunchtime barbeques, movie screenings and gatherings. Check out the Hyperakt Photostream for more.