Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2025 awards for communication design educators in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field.

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 31, 2025 .

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted until (December 31, 2025). Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words.)

Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents.)

Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant.)

Curriculum vitae of applicant/s.

Entry fee: $35.00 USD.

2025 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair) University of Minnesota

Leslie Atzmon – https://www.emich.edu/art/faculty-staff/l_atzmon.php

Bernard Caniffe – http://piecestudio.org/case-studies, https://www.design.iastate.edu/profiles/canniffe/

Matt Gaynor – https://www.memphis.edu/artanddesign/people/matthew-gaynor.php

Myra Thiessen –https://www.monash.edu/mada/design/people/myra-thiessen

Leslie Atzmon is a designer, design historian, and design critic. She has published in Eye, Design and Culture, Communication Design, and Design Issues. Atzmon edited Visual Rhetoric and the Eloquence of Design (Parlor Press 2011) and co-edited Encountering Things: Design and Theories of Things (Bloomsbury 2017) with industrial designer Prasad Boradkar. Most recently, she edited The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury 2019) with Teal Triggs of the Royal College of Art. In 2016, she was a Fulbright Fellow at Central Saint Martins in London investigating the topic of Darwin and design thinking. Atzmon and colleague Ryan Molloy were awarded a Sappi Ideas that Matter Grant, which supports design that changes lives for the better. For the grant, students rebranded Ypsilanti’s non-profit Riverside Arts Center as a community arts hub. Atzmon recently curated the exhibition Design and Science, and is currently working on a collection also entitled Design and Science (forthcoming Bloomsbury 2020).

Bernard Canniffe is a current professor and former department chair of graphic design at Iowa State University, and has held faculty positions at MICA (Baltimore), MCAD (Minneapolis) and Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota), A native of Wales (UK), he has presented and exhibited on a global scale since earning an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1999. PIECE Studio, a creative venture he founded in 2006, is an agency that “engages in and with communities, organizations, activists, governments and municipalities and has run projects and workshops that promote social justice and community empowerment internationally,” primarily through the design of identities, publications and posters. 

Matthew Gaynor received his BA and MFA in graphic design from Yale University, and is currently chair of the Department of Art and Design at the University of Memphis. He has held faculty and leadership positions at University of Kansas, California State University at San Bernardino, University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Kansas State University. He also served as creative director for F+W Publications, which published HOW magazine. Gaynor has won numerous awards for his design work, which is focused on the intersection of type and image, and continues his practice of typographic design, as well as an ongoing interest in photographic portraiture.

Myra Thiessen is a researcher and senior lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and is the program coordinator of the communication design program in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture. She earned a PhD in typography and graphic communication at the University of Reading and a Bachelor of Design degree in communication design from the University of Alberta. She has published her research widely, especially about typography and cognition, in the journals Visible Language, Ergonomics, and The Design Journal among others, and co-edited the book The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design. 

Steven McCarthy is professor emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for over two decades. He earned an MFA from Stanford University and a BFA from Bradley University. His book The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating was published in 2013. McCarthy’s creative work has been in over 150 juried and invitational exhibitions, and has been awarded inclusion in the AIGA annual, the STA 100 show and in Graphis Poster. He has published in the journals Design Issues, Message, Visible Language, Design and Culture, Visual Communication, and occasionally writes for Eye magazine. In 2017 he was awarded the Minnesota Book Artist Award.

http://stevenmccarthy.design

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2024 awards for communication design educators in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field.

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 15, 2024 January 15, 2025.

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted until (December 31, 2024) January 15, 2025. Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words.)
Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents.)
Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant.)
Curriculum vitae of applicant/s.
Entry fee: $20.

2024 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair)
University of Minnesota

Douglas Kearney
University of Minnesota

Doug Barrett
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Basma Hamdy
Virginia Commonweath University—Qatar

Kali Nikitas
University of Southern California in Los Angeles

Douglas Kearney is an acclaimed poet, librettist, performer and book designer. His work is widely awarded and anthologized, and his book Sho was a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities where he is a McKnight Presidential Fellow. Kearney earned a BA from Howard University and an MFA from CalArts. 

https://www.douglaskearney.com

Doug Barrett is a professor of graphic design at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has over 20 years of professional graphic design experience. His practice combines client-oriented commercial work, community-focused “design for good,” and experimental design authorship. Barrett has received an Alabama State Arts Fellowship in Design and a Sappi: Ideas That Matter grant. He has an MFA from the University of Florida.

https://www.dougbarrett.com

Basma Hamdy is a professor of graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University–Qatar campus where she teaches across the undergraduate and graduate curricula. Her scholarship ranges from visual documentation of socio-political activism in Egypt to exploring Arabic typography and calligraphy. Hamdy has an MFA from MICA and is currently a candidate for a PhD at Leiden University and The Royal Academy of Art in The Netherlands. 

https://qatar.vcu.edu/news/our-faculty/basma-hamdy/

Kali Nikitas serves as MFA Design Academic Program Manager at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She is a former Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Northeastern University and Otis College of Art and Design. Kali served as the Chair of the design departments at MCAD, NEU, and Otis making administration her main focus. Her designs and curatorial projects have been widely awarded and published. In addition to her academic role, she is a “Curator of Moments” designing happenings and events in the creative sector. Kali received an MFA in graphic design from CalArts and a BFA in graphic design from the University of Illinois, Chicago. 

https://www.tumblr.com/kali-nikitas

Steven McCarthy is a professor emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota. His scholarship has led to lectures, exhibits, publications and grant-funded research on six continents. McCarthy has published in the field’s leading academic journals and he has been in over 135 juried and invitational exhibits. He has an MFA in design from Stanford University and a BFA in art from Bradley University. 

http://stevenmccarthy.design

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2023 awards for communication design educators and graduate students in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field. 

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until January 15, 2024 

ENTRY GUIDELINES

Entries will be accepted until January 15, 2024. Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

• Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words)
• Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents)
• Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant)
• Curriculum vitae of applicant/s
• $20 entry fee donation

2023 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair), University of Minnesota

Helen Armstrong
Professor
North Carolina State University

Anne H. Berry
Associate Professor
Cleveland State University

Warren Lehrer
Founding Faculty
School of Visual Arts, MFA Design

Ana Raposo
Lecturer
ESAD – Escola Superior de Arte e Design
Porto, Portugal

Neeta Verma
Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame

BIOGRAPHIES

Helen Armstrong

Helen Armstrong is Professor of Graphic & Experience Design at North Carolina State University. She has an MFA in Graphic Design from The Maryland Institute College of Art. Armstrong has authored several books including her latest: Big Data, Big Design: Why Designers Should Care About Artificial Intelligence. Armstrong is a past member of the AIGA National Board of Directors and she served on the editorial board of the journal Design and Culture.

Anne H. Berry

Anne H. Berry is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Cleveland State University. She has an MFA in graphic design from Kent State University. Her research focuses on race and representation in design, and ethnic and racial disparities within the field of graphic design. Berry was managing editor of the book The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection, which was included in Fast Company’s “Best Design Books of 2022.”

Warren Lehrer

Warren Lehrer is a founding faculty member of SVA’s Designer as Author/Entrepreneur MFA program and Professor Emeritus at Purchase College, SUNY. Lehrer has an MFA from Yale University, is a writer and designer known internationally as a pioneer in the fields of visual literature and design authorship. His artists’ books and multimedia projects have been widely exhibited and are in many collections including MoMA, The Met, Pompidou Centre, and Tate Gallery. Among many honors, he is a 2019 Ladislav Sutnar Laureate, and 2016 Center for Book Arts Honoree.

Steven McCarthy (Chair)

Steven McCarthy is Professor Emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota. He has an MFA from Stanford University. He authored the book The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating. McCarthy’s creative work has been in over 135 juried and invitational exhibitions and has been honored by the AIGA, STA 100 and Graphis Poster. He has published in the journals Design Issues, Message, Visible Language, Design and Culture, She Ji, and AIGA Dialectic, and occasionally writes for Eye magazine.

Ana Raposo

Ana Raposo is Lecturer at art and design academy ESAD (Escola Superior de Arte e Design) located in Porto, Portugal. She is a graphic designer, educator and design researcher who has a PhD from Central Saint Martins / University of the Arts, London. Raposo has published a number of journal articles about punk rock music graphics, facism and politics and has presented at the Design History Society conference and the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association national conference.

Neeta Verma

Neeta Verma is an Associate Professor of Visual Communication Design at the University of Notre Dame. She has an MFA from Yale University. Verma’s areas of research and teaching explore the critical use of design as a tool for social equity and justice. She has been the recipient of numerous awards. Her professional design work includes clients such as the American Red Cross, Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, Liberty Science Center, The New York Botanical Garden, The New York Public Library, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Wildlife Conservation Society.

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2022 awards for communication design educators and graduate students in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field. 

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 31, 2022 

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted until December 31, 2022. Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

• Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words)
• Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents)
• Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant)
• Curriculum vitae of applicant/s
• $20 entry fee donation

2022 Jury

Steven McCarthy (Chair), University of Minnesota, 

John Bowers, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

Maria Rogal, University of Florida, Florida

Kaleena Sales, Tennessee State University

R. Brian Stone, The National University of Singapore

Teal Triggs, Royal College of Art, London

Biographies

JOHN BOWERS

John Bowers is chair of the Visual Communication Design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through making, writing, and teaching, he explores issues of individual and collective identity. His making practice repurposes newspapers from public to private record, and billboard paper into forms that address their underlying targeting strategies and have been sold through Printed Matter. He worked as a Senior Identity Designer at Landor (San Francisco) during the dot-com bubble. His professional work has been published in 365: AIGA, Communication Arts, ID, and Graphis. His writing includes “A Lesson from Spirograph,” (Design Observer), Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function, Second Edition (Wiley), and Visual Communication Design Teaching Strategies, which isposted on the AIGA Educators Community website. He has been a curriculum consultant and visiting designer in the US, Canada, and Sweden.

STEVEN MCCARTHY (CHAIR)

Steven McCarthy is Professor Emeritus of Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He established the Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards and chaired the jury from 2016-2018. McCarthy’s teaching, scholarship, and contributions to the discipline include lectures, exhibitions, publications, and grant-funded research on a global scale. His creative work was featured in 125+ exhibitions and he is the author of The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating (BIS, Amsterdam). From 2014–2017, McCarthy served on the board of directors of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

MARIA ROGAL

Maria Rogal is a Professor of Graphic Design and founding director of MFA in Design & Visual Communications at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative codesigning with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to support autonomy and self-determination. After over a decade working with partners in México, she cofounded Codesigning Equitable Futures to foster respectful collaborations among the university and local community in Gainesville, Florida. She continues to speak and write about social and codesign, recently presenting at Pivot 2020, and co-authored “CoDesigning for Development,” which appears in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. Her research has been funded by AIGA, Sappi, and Fulbright programs, among others, and her creative design work has been featured in national and international juried exhibitions.

KALEENA SALES

Kaleena Sales is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Chair of the Department of Art & Design at Tennessee State University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) in Nashville, TN. She is co-host of Design Observer’s The Design of Business | The Business of Design Minisodes podcast with Omari Souza. Her design writing and research centers on Black culture and aesthetics, recently co-authoring the book Extra-Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Non-Binary Field Guild for Graphic Designers, alongside Ellen Lupton, Farah Kafei, Jennifer Tobias, Josh A. Halstead, Leslie Xia, and Valentina Vergara. Kaleena has a Master’s Degree from VCU Brandcenter, an MFA from Savannah College of Art & Design, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Design at NC State University. 

R. BRIAN STONE

 R. Brian Stone is an Associate Professor at The National University of Singapore. His award-winning work and teachings are centered in the areas of motion design, interaction design, information visualization, and user experience.

Professor Stone is the co-founder of the bi-annual MODE Summit, an international conference bringing together motion design educators to present research and discuss the discipline. In addition, he is the co-editor of a collection of essays entitled, The Theory and Practice of Motion Design: Critical Perspectives and Professional Practice published by Routledge.

Prior, to his tenure at NUS, Brian taught at the University of the Arts and The Ohio State University. Apple recognized Professor Stone’s teaching with the Apple Distinguished Educator award. He is also a recipient of the Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award, The Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Order of Omega Faculty Recognition Award, and the National University of Singapore’s Annual Teaching Excellence Award.

Brian holds a MA and MFA in Design from The Ohio State University and a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of the Arts.

TEAL TRIGGS

Teal Triggs is Professor of Graphic Design and leads on the MPhil/PhD programme in the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London. As a graphic design historian, critic and educator she has lectured and broadcast widely and her writings have appeared in numerous edited books and international design publications. Triggs’s research focuses on design pedagogy, criticism, self-publishing, and feminism. She is Associate Editor of Design Issues (MIT Press) and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Communication Design (Taylor & Francis/ico-D). Her recent books include: co-editor with Professor Leslie Atzmon of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson)and the children’s book The School of Art (Wide Eyed Editions) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is Fellow of the Design Research Society, International Society of Typographic Designers and the Royal Society of Arts.

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2021 awards for communication design educators and graduate students in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field. 

Nominations

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators and graduate students in our field and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 1, 2021. 

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted from June 1–December 1, 2021. Complete the online entry form with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words)

Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents)

Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant)

Curriculum vitae of applicant/s

The 2021 Design Incubation Awards: Graduate Student Work 

If you are faculty advising graduate students please encourage students to enter the competition by nominating them for the awards.  The future of communication design education begins with the work of future faculty and researchers in the field of Communication Design. Recognition of graduate student work will be grouped and reviewed in the categories of scholarship, creative projects, service, and teaching. Graduate students currently enrolled in graduate design programs are invited to submit scholarship, creative projects, service projects, teaching innovations they completed during graduate study or up to one year after graduation. 

2021 Jury

Gail Anderson, School of Visual Arts, New York

John Bowers, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

Lesley-Ann Noel, North Carolina State University, North Carolina

Maria Rogal, University of Florida, Florida

Lucille Tenazas, Parsons School of Design, New York

Teal Triggs (Chair), Royal College of Art, London

Biographies

Gail Anderson

Gail Anderson is an NYC-based designer, educator, and writer. She is Chair of BFA Design and BFA Advertising at the School of Visual Arts and the creative director at Visual Arts Press. Anderson has served as senior art director at Rolling Stone, creative director of design at SpotCo, and as a designer at The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and Vintage Books. She has taught at SVA for thirty years and has coauthored 15 books on design, typography, and illustration with the fabulous Steven Heller. 

Anderson serves on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee for the US Postal Service and the advisory boards of Poster House and The One Club for Creativity. She is an AIGA Medalist and the 2018 recipient of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Lifetime Achievement Award for Design. Her work is represented in the Library of Congress’s permanent collections, the Milton Glaser Design Archives, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

John Bowers

John Bowers is chair of the Visual Communication Design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through making, writing, and teaching, he explores issues of individual and collective identity. His making practice repurposes newspapers from public to private record, and billboard paper into forms that address their underlying targeting strategies and have been sold through Printed Matter. He worked as a Senior Identity Designer at Landor (San Francisco) during the dot-com bubble. His professional work has been published in 365: AIGA, Communication Arts, ID, and Graphis. His writing includes “A Lesson from Spirograph,” (Design Observer), Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function, Second Edition (Wiley), and Visual Communication Design Teaching Strategies, which isposted on the AIGA Educators Community website. He has been a curriculum consultant and visiting designer in the US, Canada, and Sweden.

Lesley-Ann Noel

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel is a faculty member at the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She has a BA in Industrial Design from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, in Curitiba, Brazil, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago and a Ph.D. in Design from North Carolina State University. 

Lesley-Ann practices design through emancipatory, critical, and anti-hegemonic lenses,  focusing on equity, social justice, and the experiences of people who are often excluded from design research, primarily in the area of social innovation, education and public health. She also attempts to promote greater critical awareness among designers and design students by introducing critical theory concepts and vocabulary into the design studio e.g. through The Designer’s Critical Alphabet.

She is co-Chair of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society.

Maria Rogal

Maria Rogal is a Professor of Graphic Design and founding director of MFA in Design & Visual Communications at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative codesigning with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to support autonomy and self-determination. After over a decade working with partners in México, she cofounded Codesigning Equitable Futures to foster respectful collaborations among the university and local community in Gainesville, Florida. She continues to speak and write about social and codesign, recently presenting at Pivot 2020, and co-authored “CoDesigning for Development,” which appears in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. Her research has been funded by AIGA, Sappi, and Fulbright programs, among others, and her creative design work has been featured in national and international juried exhibitions.

Lucille Tenazas

Lucille Tenazas is an educator and graphic designer based in New York and San Francisco. Her work is at the intersection of typography and linguistics, with design that reflects complex and poetic means of visual expression. She is the Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design and was the Associate Dean in the School of Art, Media and Technology from 2013-2020. She taught at California College of the Arts (CCA) for 20 years, where she developed the MFA Design program with an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on form-giving, teaching and leadership.

Lucille was the national president of the AIGA from 1996-98 and was awarded the AIGA Medal in 2013 for her lifetime contribution to design practice and outstanding leadership in design education. She received the National Design Award for Communication Design by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in 2002. Originally from Manila, the Philippines, Lucille studied at CCA and received her MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Teal Triggs (Chair)

Teal Triggs is Professor of Graphic Design and leads on the MPhil/PhD programme in the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London. As a graphic design historian, critic and educator she has lectured and broadcast widely and her writings have appeared in numerous edited books and international design publications. Triggs’s research focuses on design pedagogy, criticism, self-publishing, and feminism. She is Associate Editor of Design Issues (MIT Press) and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Communication Design (Taylor & Francis/ico-D). Her recent books include: co-editor with Professor Leslie Atzmon of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson)and the children’s book The School of Art (Wide Eyed Editions) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is Fellow of the Design Research Society, International Society of Typographic Designers and the Royal Society of Arts.