design
Art and Art History

Design Lecture Series

FALL 2009

Jim Walker
“Campus Culture and Sustainability”
Wednesday September 16, 5:30-7:00 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.102

Jim moved to Austin from Oregon in 1992 working as a carpenter. In 1998, Jim completed a Masters in Planning from UT-Austin and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. In 2000, Jim became Executive Director of the Central Texas Sustainability Indicators Project. In 2007 he was appointed as a Research Fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at UT-Austin and in 2009 he was appointed as the Director of Sustainability for UT-Austin. He is actively engaged in many community efforts working to shape the future of the Central Texas region, including Envision Central Texas, Livable City, the United Way Capital Area, the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, and the Mueller Redevelopment. In 2008 he was named Under 40 Austinite of the Year.


Nancy Sharon Collins
"Love Letters: American Commercial Engraving, Monograms and Social Stationery"
Tuesday September 22, 6:00-7:30 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.120

Nancy Sharon Collins has been cited over sixty times in popular media for exemplary bespoke hand engraved social stationery. She is a typographer, print history scholar, partner in Collins, LLC, AIGA New Orleans director of special projects and a member of adjunct faculty at Loyola University New Orleans. Nancy presented "The Real Mad Men/Graphic Design History in Louisiana" at the 2009 AIGA Leadership Retreat in Portland, OR, co-authored "Green Salon New Orleans" for Seattle Journal for Social Justice and "Revisionist History of Graphic Design" for the 2008 Southeastern College Art Conference. She recently presented "Readable Text New Orleans Style at TypeCon 2009 in Atlanta where she also gave the engraving workshop for which she is well known.

Mrs. Collins owned and operated the graphic design firm Nancy Feldman studio in New York City from 1978 to 2004. Clients included WaterfordWedgwood, Clinique, Prescriptives, Revlon, Charles of the Ritz, Curve fragrance, The Metropolitan Opera Shop and the Museum of Modern Art.



Andrew Donoho
"Constraints, Design and Software"
Thursday September 24, 5:30-7:00 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.120

Andrew Donoho has a small mobile device consulting firm, Donoho Design Group, which concentrates on iPhone development. This is the natural extension of his over-25-year history of developing with Apple technologies. He has experience in developing 3D visualization software, designing hardware and crafting web standards. He was adjunct faculty at the School of Information teaching Information Design. In a public service role, he served almost five years on the City of Austin's Resource Management Commission. This Commission oversaw energy, gas and water conservation programs and solar thermal and photovoltaic rebate programs. He is trained in experimental physics with a degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

 

Rick Griffith
“Alternative Model for Professional Practice”
Wednesday September 30, 6:00-7:30 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.102

For just under 20 years, Rick Griffith has sought clarity about language and communication through the broad discipline of design and more specifically typography. His works are both elemental and ambitious, as they offer his remarks often tethered to a vaguely representative object designed to inspire dialog. His projects and commercial works have been cited in national and international resources, including several books by Rockport Publishers, Print Magazine, AIGA 365, Dwell Magazine, and most recently, Art for Obama, Manifest Hope and the Campaign for Change. His work is included in the AIGA National Design Archives at the Denver Art Museum, The Butler Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Columbia University, and the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

For 15 years, he has taught graphic design and typography for the University of Colorado, Denver, The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, and most recently, The University of Denver. He serves as lecturer and panelist for conferences and presents on either his method for teaching and practicing as a designer/typographer or the model of professional practice of his studio and laboratory MATTER.

 

Jesse Vogler and Szu-Han Ho
Monday November 2, 6:00-7:30 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.120

Jesse Vogler and Szu-Han Ho bring broad considerations to their work in architecture and art-making from experience in farming, land surveying, building, teaching, and writing. Jesse received his M.Arch from UC Berkeley and currently teaches graduate seminars and design studios at the Illinois Institute of Technology and at Archeworks in Chicago. Szu- Han received her MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently working toward an MFA at SAIC. thenorthroom, a critical art and design practice initiated in 2004, serves as an experimental platform for their research-based inquiries into spatial practices, material cultures, and expanded notions of community. Recent papers have been presented at the New School, the University of Chicago Department of Cinema and Media Studies, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in Los Angeles, and the Vernacular Architects Forum in New York. Their collaborative work will be featured in a forthcoming publication by [bracket], an annual publication of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. They are currently living and working in Chicago.

 

Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio
Monday November 9, 6:00-7:30 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.120

Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit founded UnderConsideration in 2002 and have tended to its growth since then. Born and raised in Mexico City, both are graphic designers, currently running the Department of Design as UnderConsideration’s creative services outlet. When not working, writing or obsessing about design, Armin lectures on a range of topics in a range of cities — Bryony allows it, and even joins him on occasions, like their last joint talk in Venice, Italy. Before establishing UnderConsideration, Bryony and Armin had worked in the industry for ten years, accruing experience in various disciplines including corporate and brand identity, annual reports, business collateral, web design and programming, packaging, as well as magazine and book design. In their last employment positions they worked as senior designers for two of New York’s most prolific and recognized design firms, Addison and Pentagram, respectively. Their work has been recognized in numerous award publications and books, and they regularly serve on design juries for various national competitions as well. In 2006, one of their blogs was the only blog included in the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Triennial.

 

Justine Nagan
Tueasday November 17, 6:00-8:00 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.120

Justine Nagan is Kartemquin Films' Executive Director as well as a Producer on staff. With Kartemquin, she recently directed Typeface, a documentary on American typography and graphic design. She recently acted as the Associate Producer on Kartemquin's Peabody award winning documentary Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita, which was broadcast nationally on PBS' Independent Lens in 2008, and as the Co-Producer of An All American City during its development phase. Prior to these projects, she helped Kartemquin develop the series The Learning Chronicles while earning her Master's Degree in the Humanities with an emphasis on Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Chicago. Other experience includes teaching at the Hyde Park Art Center, as well as working as a Theatre Manager for the Chicago International Film Festival and as a summer Fellow for The HistoryMakers, an African-American video oral-history archive.

Before moving to Chicago, she produced promotional spots for Public Television, directed the post-production department for a small media firm and worked for various other companies ranging from M&C Saatchi in Sydney, Australia to Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know? on National Public Radio. Justine received her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in Film and Journalism. She has served as the staff representative on Kartemquin's Board of Directors, as an elected member of the Badger Herald Newspaper's Board and has acted on several other civic and community committees.

 

Jakob Trollbäck
Monday November 23, 6:00-7:30 PM
Art Building, Room ART 1.120

A self-taught designer from Sweden, Jakob Trollbäck leads an innovative and highly successful company, creates seminal and award-winning designs, and is an acknowledged industry leader in branding and motion graphic design.

Springing forth from seemingly unorthodox beginnings, Trollbäck + Company was born when the former DJ transferred his aural pursuits to the visual medium, aiming to create emotive pieces that take their audiences to purely sensorial planes. Jakob's ambitions quickly moved his company to the forefront of motion design. Currently in its eighth year, Trollbäck has successfully expanded its creative output to film titles including Oscar-winning Capote, TV-commercials, publication design, environmental design, music videos and short films. Clients include top TV networks CBS, AMC, HBO, TCM, TNT, and Sundance Channel; film companies HBO Films, Fox Searchlight and Miramax; and advertising clients Nike, Volvo, Fidelity, and Jaguar.

Trollbäck + Company has received dozens of creative-industry awards, including those from the Primetime Emmy Awards, AICP Show, Art Directors Club, Broadcast Designers Association, British D&AD, Communication Arts Design Annual, The One Show, and Type Directors Club, among many others. Currently, Trollbäck + Company is included in the 2006–2007 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial.

 

 

 

Past Design Lectures can be found on the Past Design Lecture Series page.