The 2023 Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards

2023 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2023 Communication Design Educators Awards!

SCHOLARSHIP: PUBLICATIONS


Winner

Feminist Designer

Alison Place
Assistant Professor
University of Arkansas

Additional contributors: Jennifer Armbrust, Dina Benbrahim, Madeline Avram Blount, Elizabeth Byrd, Benedetta Crippa, Alexandra Crosby, Laura Devendorf, Rachael Dietkus, Ashley K. Eberhart, Griselda Flesler, Aimi Hamraie, Gaby Hernández, Alexis Hope, Jeff Kasper, Ellen Kellogg, Aasawari Kulkarni, Eden Laurin, Una Lee, Andrew Mallinson, Claudia Marina, Victor G. Martinez, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Margaret Middleton, Maryam Mustafa, Becky Nasadowski, Maya Ober, Nina Paim, Elizabeth Pérez, Heather Snyder Quinn, Cami Rincón, Jenn Roberts, Velvet A. Johnson Ross, In-ah Shin, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, Ayako Takase, Attia Taylor, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Aggie Toppins, Ilaria Vanni, Joana Varon, Manon Vergerio, Mandy Harris Williams, Sarah Williams.


Winner

Centered: People and Ideas Diversifying Design

Kaleena Sales
Associate Professor
Tennessee State University


Runner up

Co-Creating Compassion: Engaging the Alzheimer’s Community in Social Robotics for Caregiving

Kimberly Mitchell
Assistant Professor
University of Tennessee-Knoxville

SCHOLARSHIP: CREATIVE PRODUCTION
Winner

You Look Like the Right Type

Mark Addison Smith
Associate Professor
DePaul University

TEACHING
Winner

Making History: Teaching Design History Methods in Studio

Aggie Toppins
Associate Professor
Washington University in St. Louis

Runner up

Visualizing Self-Tracked Data to Navigate Well-being

Yvette Shen
Associate Professor
Ohio State University

SERVICE
Winner

Maternal Health Hackathon:
Community-Led Design for Reproductive Justice in Arkansas

Bree McMahon
Assistant Professor
University of Arkansas

Alison Place
Assistant Professor
University of Arkansas

2023 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair)
Professor Emeritus
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

The 2022 Design Incubation Communication Educators Design Awards

2022 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 Communication Design Educators Awards!

SCHOLARSHIP: PUBLICATIONS

The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and Reflection 

Anne H. Berry
Associate Professor
Cleveland State University

Jennifer Rittner
Visiting Assistant Professor 
Parsons School of Design

Kelly Walters
Assistant Professor of Communication Design 
Parsons School of Design

Lesley-Ann Noel, PhD
Assistant Professor
NC State University

Penina Laker 
Assistant Professor
Washington University in St. Louis

Kareem Collie
User Experience Design Lead
IBM

Design after Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow 
Matthew Wizinsky
Associate Professor
Graduate Program Director (MDes) & Associate Professor
University of Cincinnati

SCHOLARSHIP: CREATIVE PRODUCTION

Tangible Graphic Design 
Taekyeom Lee 
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

TEACHING

no award

SERVICE

In the Round Series // Moving A Land Acknowledgment Statement Toward Action and Practice

Jenn Stucker 
Associate Professor
Bowling Green State University

Heidi Nees
Assistant Professor
Bowling Green State University

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.

The 2021 Design Incubation Communication Design Awards

2021 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Communication Design Awards!

Scholarship: Creative Works

Unawarded

Scholarship: Published Research

Published Design Research Award Winner

Design as a Tool to Counter Structural Oppression

Sheena Erete
Associate Professor, School of Design
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University

Natasha Smith-Walker – Project Exploration
Caitlin Martin

Category: Teaching Award

Design Teaching Award Winner

Social Design: Bridging Two Continents Through Collaboration and Innovation

Neeta Verma
Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame

Design Teaching Award Runner Up

Semiotics Studio
Aggie Toppins
Associate Professor
Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts 

Washington University in St. Louis

Category: Service Award

Service Design Award Winner

Uttar Pradesh’s First Breastfeeding Cubicle

Sarah Tanishka Nethan
Researcher
Community Empowerment Lab 

Shatarupa Bandopadhyay, Former Art Fellow, Community Empowerment Lab

Abdul Qadir, Graphic Designer, Community Empowerment Lab

Aarti Kumar, CEO, Community Empowerment Lab

Vishwajeet Kumar, Principal Scientist, Community Empowerment Lab

Category: Graduate Work

Unawarded

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.

Exploring the Research Map: Thoughts on Design Research Investigations

An Affiliated Society Meeting at the 110th Annual CAA Conference

Join Design Incubation – Business Meeting on Thursday, March 3, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM at the 110th Annual CAA Conference. Free and open to the public.

Design Incubation Directors Jessica Barness, Liz DeLuna, Camila Afanador-Llach, and Dan Wong will moderate a discussion on the mapping of design research and its development trajectory.

Design Incubation recently launched a new initiative to map current activities in Communication Design Research and Scholarship (R&S). We kicked off this project at the international Design Research Society (DRS) Festival of Emergence 2021, and workshopped a second phase with AIGA DEC November 2021. This map is a collaborative, living, visual document that will further establish historical precedents and future trajectories for Communication Design R&S. Join us as we share progress, generate dialogue, and continue to shape this project.

CALL – Key Topics and Sustained Research Programs in Communication Design

Visible Language 56.1 -Special Issue

The essence of a field entails its scope, actions, and outcomes. Communication Design entails conveying ideas using visual words and pictures, or typography and symbology. 

Therefore, it is reasonable that all the features of typographic embodiment from reading to interpreting, from social and cultural lenses to physical constraints of lighting and reading distance, from physicality of paper and ink to impression of high resolution led displays, from legibility of letterforms to rhetorical forms of writing, and more, should be well understood by communication designers. The same could be said of all the features of pictures, symbols, and icons, and in addition, all the features of the ways pictures and words combine in layouts across media from print to time-based to interactive media, and in addition to that, all the ways people interact with these features in a multitude of contexts. You get the idea. There is a lot to know about the extent, mechanisms, and impacts of Communication Design. 

But because Communication Design is a young discipline we know relatively little about almost all the aforementioned features, at least we ‘know’ little with the degree of precision or rigor that characterizes so many other disciplines. Because adolescent Communication Design knowledge has a wealth of unanswered questions and a broad expanse of topics needing investigation, to advance, Communication Design needs sustained research programs that focus on the key features of the discipline. 

Visible Language seeks to promote Communication Design research by exposing both what has been studied in-depth and what needs to be studied in-depth. 

This is a call for papers for the Summer 2022 issue of Visible Language that report on one of two related things: either a paper describing a series of related research studies spanning several years centered around a single topic – in other words a sustained research program, or a paper reporting research into what communication design topics are important enough that they should be researched for a sustained period – in other words, key topics that should have sustained research. 

Articles reporting sustained Communication Design research programs may be much different from article proposals reporting topics that need study. The report of a sustained research program will be retrospective and will cover not one study but where, how, what, and why a series of related studies have been conducted and may feature the role of collaboration, funding sources, and the nature of a rich topic worthy of sustained study. 

Articles describing Communication Design topics that merit sustained research should likewise be based on systematic study but will be prospective in nature, using some form of gathered and analyzed evidence to support why a particular topic merits sustained investigation including the topic’s definition and known parameters. 

Article proposals should be in the form of a one-sentence summary of the article followed by an outline of the manuscript argument in the general form: 

  • Introduction/Background – where this is grounded, why the subject is/was important; 
  • Methods – how this has been/might be studied; 
  • Results – what was/might be found; Discussion – why what was/would be found matters. 

Submit article proposals to: 
Mike Zender, Editor, Visible Language 
mike.zender@uc.edu 

  • Article proposals due by Feb, 28, 2022. 
  • Notification of acceptance of article concept by Mar 15th, 2022. 
    *acceptance of concept means the manuscript will be sent for peer-review, only articles accepted by the peer-reviewers will be publish. 
  • Manuscripts due for peer-review on May 15th, 2022. 
  • Peer-reviews to authors: Jun 1st, 2022. 
  • Revised manuscripts due Jun 15th, 2022 publication – August 2022.

Collective Mapping of Communication Design Research and Scholarship

This is a collaborative, living, visual document that will further establish historical precedents and future trajectories.

November 12, 2021, 3-4pm EST 
Zoom link

AIGA DEC edition with Design Incubation Chairs Jessica Barness, Liz DeLuna, Heather Snyder Quinn, and Dan Wong. Design Incubation recently launched a new initiative to map current activities in Communication Design Research and Scholarship (R&S). We kicked off this project at the international Design Research Society Festival of Emergence last month, and for this second phase, we are bringing it to the AIGA DEC. This map is a collaborative, living, visual document that will further establish historical precedents and future trajectories for Communication Design R&S. Join us as we share progress, generate dialogue, and continue to shape this project.

Moderated by Rebecca Tegtmeyer

Mapping the Landscape of Research and Scholarly Activities in Communication Design

Design Research Society’s Festival of Emergence.
Friday, Sept 10 at 8am EST

Jessica Barness, Heather Synder Quinn, Dan Wong, Liz DeLuna

Facilitators: Laura Rossi Garcia, Nathan Matteson, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Matt Wizinsky

https://drsfestivalofemergence.org/

This moment requires a potentially radical pivot towards reconsidering research and scholarship (R&S) in Communication Design. Academic institutions look to the disciplines for their knowledge and theoretical development within the field. They also expect established definitions and norms for research and scholarship, as the ways we bring forth novel work into thinking beyond the status quo. Therefore R&S must be defined by the discipline to ensure consensus among peers and thought leaders and subsequently recognized by institutions based upon their missions. We could be doing this better. The goal of this Moment is to generate a living, visual document to further establish historical precedents and future trajectories for Communication Design R&S. As the landscape broadens with new technological innovations, global crises force us to adopt new ways to share and communicate ideas and establish new methods, projects, and theses. This collaborative map will help to frame subsequent public discussions.

Outline: This Moment is part presentation, part workshop, and part coffee break.

The agenda will be as follows:

  • Brief introduction by the proposers
  • Proposers present a series of prompts
  • Groups are given access to a Miro online whiteboard
  • Full group collaboratively discussing a holistic map of Communication Design R&S

The 2020 Design Incubation Communication Design Awards

2020 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulation to the recipients of the 2020 Communication Design Awards!

Scholarship: Creative Works Awards

Winner: Cradlr: A Design Project for Refugee Children

Jing Zhou
Associate Professor
Department of Art and Design
Monmouth University

Runner-up: afFEMation.com

Jane Connory
Lecturer
Art, Design & Architecture
Swinburne University of Technology and Monash University

Scholarship: Published Research

None awarded

Service Award

Winner: Diseño y diáspora podcast

Mariana Salgado
Service Designer/ Lecturer
Ministry of the Interior in Finland

Andrés Fechtenholz
Julian Pereyra
Antonio Zimmermann
Mercedes Salgado

Runner-up: AIGA Design Educators Community SHIFT 2020 Virtual Summit

Alison Place
Assistant Professor
University of Arkansas

Liese Zahabi
Assistant Professor
University of New Hampshire

Alberto Rigau
Estudio Interlínea

Teaching Award

Winner: If This is Theory, Why Isn’t It Boring? Connecting traditional text[book]s to real-life contexts with Augmented Reality

Deborah Littlejohn
Associate Professor
College of Design
North Carolina State University

Special Award – joint winners

Jury Commendation for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Scholarship: Creative Works: Expanding the Canon:

Jane Connory

Service: Expanding the Canon:

Mariana Salgado

Graduate Student Awards

None awarded

ABOUT THE 2020 JURY

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 a 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 close to thirty years and has co-authored 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 board of Poster House. 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 permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Milton Glaser Design Archives, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Fatima Cassim, Ph.D., heads the Information Design division in the Department of Visual Arts at the University Pretoria, South Africa. In 2012, she received a Harvard South African Fellowship for a research residency at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on the culture of design; in particular, she is interested in design activism and the possible impact it may have on design citizenship. Dr. Cassim is the co-editor of the accredited Image & Text journal and the Director of Education on the board of directors for Open Design, a South African NGO that uses and promotes design to innovate, educate and build resilient communities.

Denise Gonzales Crisp is a Professor of Graphic Design and Director of Graduate Programs for Graphic Design at North Carolina State University College of Design. She is the author of Graphic Design in Context: Typography (Thames & Hudson, 2011). Her juried and commissioned essays have been published in Design and Culture Journal, Design Observer, Design Research, The Design Dictionary, and other notable anthologies. Gonzales Crisp is a contributing editorial board member for Design and Culture Journal. A member of the graphic design professional organization American Institute of Graphic Arts since 1989, she has served on the Los Angeles chapter’s advisory board.

Paul J. Nini is a Professor and past Chairperson in the Department of Design at The Ohio State University, where he has also acted as Graduate Studies Chair and Coordinator of the Visual Communication Design undergraduate program. His professional service activities have included: board member of the Graphic Design Education Association; member of AIGA’s Design Educators Community steering committee; editorial board member for the ico-D journal Communication Design: Interdisciplinary and Graphic Design Research; and advisory board member for AIGA’s Dialectic journal. A collection of his academic writing can be found at – https://medium.com/@pjn123.

Maria Rogal is a Professor of Graphic Design and leads the new Design & Visual Communications MFA at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative to co-design with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to generate sustainable local outcomes supporting self-determination. She has lectured and published about social and co-design, recently co-authoring “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.

Teal Triggs, Ph.D., (Chair) is a Professor of Graphic Design and leads on the MPhil/Ph.D. programme in the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London. As a graphic design historian, researcher and educator she lectures and broadcasts widely and her writings have appeared in numerous international design publications and edited books. Her recent books include: co-editor of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson), and The School of Art (Wide Eyed) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is a 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 2020 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. 

This year, the jury also will be considering commendations for work covering the area of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion in communication design. We encourage submissions of work that relate to these areas for consideration.

Nominations

We kindly ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being done by design educators and graduate students in our field and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted from April 15 to July 31, 2020. 

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted from June 1–August 31, 2020. 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)
  • Bio of applicant/s (150 words per applicant)
  • Curriculum vitae of applicant/s

New Initiative for the 2020 Design Incubation Awards: Graduate Student Work 

Beginning this year, Design Incubation is accepting entries in a new juried area of Graduate Student Work. 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, and service. Graduate students currently enrolled in graduate design programs are invited to submit scholarship, creative projects, and service projects they completed during graduate study or up to one year after graduation. 

The Design Incubation Communication Design Awards 2019

2019 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulations to the 2019 awardees: 

SCHOLARSHIP—CREATIVE WORK AWARD

WINNER: Chicago Design Milestones

Sharon Oiga, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago;
Guy Villa Jr, Assistant Professor, Columbia College Chicago and
Daria Tsoupikova, Associate Professor University of Illinois at Chicago (with Jack Weiss, Chicago Design Archive;
Cheri Gearhart, Chicago Design Archive;
Wayne Stuetzer, Chicago Design Archive;
Krystofer Kim, Lead Animator, NASA; and
Ali Khan, Animator, University of Illinois at Chicago)

WINNER: Five Oceans in a Teaspoon

Warren Lehrer, Professor, SUNY, Purchase (with Dennis J Bernstein—poems)

RUNNER UP: Age of Humility

Rebekah Modrak, Professor, University of Michigan;
Jamie Lausch Vander Broek, Librarian, University of Michigan; and
Sam Oliver, Designer, Shaper Realities

SCHOLARSHIP—PUBLISHED RESEARCH AWARD

WINNER: Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco, Editor

WINNER: Visible Language Special Issue on the History of Visual Communication Design

Dori Griffin, Assistant Professor, University of Florida, Editor

RUNNER UP: The Theory and Practice of Motion Design

R. Brian Stone, Associate Professor, The Ohio State University  and
Leah Wahlin, Senior Lecturer, The Ohio State University, Editors

TEACHING AWARD

WINNER: Perspectives Vancouver

Jonathan Hannan, Assistant Professor, Emily Carr University of Art + Design

Winner: Fusing Old and New: Visual Communication for the Liberal Arts

Evelyn Davis-Walker, Assistant Professor, Valdosta State University


RUNNER UP: Woodhill Homes―Design for Experience

Omari Souza, Assistant Professor, Texas State University

SERVICE AWARD

WINNER: Cocktails Against Cancer

Katherine Mueller, Assistant Professor, Temple University

RUNNER UP: Decipher 2018

Kelly Murdoch-Kitt, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan and
Omar Sosa-Tzec, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

JURY COMMENDATION for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Puerto Rico 2054: Design Pedagogy in a Time of Crisis

Maria Mater O’Neil, Adjunct Professor, Interamerican University, Fajardo Campus & University of Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras and Carolina Campus) and Lesley Anne Noel, Professor of Practice in Design Thinking, Tulane University

As the awards program enters its fourth year, we are committed to forming a jury of esteemed design educators with diverse perspectives and experiences. Design Incubation is pleased to announce the 2019 Communication Design Educators Awards jury, consisting of internationally recognized design educators: Audrey G. Bennett, Saki Mafundikwa, Steven McCarthy, Maria Rogal (chair), and Teal Triggs. 

This awards program furthers Design Incubation’s aim to discover and draw attention to new creative work, published research, teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope our colleagues will help to identify excellent contributions within their network and encourge faculty to submit their applications. New this year is a nominations period (through July 31st) and a timeline aimed that we hope avoids peak times in academic calendars. Information on the awards program in available on our website.

Nominations and entries can be completed online, in our awards call for entries.

About the Jury

Audrey G. Bennett is a tenured Professor of Art and Design at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is a former Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Scholar of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and a former College Art Association Professional Development Fellow. She studies the user-centered design of multimodal and intersensory images for communication across cultures. Her research publications include: “How Design Education Can Use Generative Play to Innovate for Social Change” (International Journal of Design); Engendering Interaction with Images (Intellect/University of Chicago Press); The Rise of Research in Graphic Design (Princeton Architectural Press); “Interactive Aesthetics” (Design Issues); and “Good Design is Good Social Change” (Visible Language). She is the co-editor of the Icograda Design Education Manifesto 2011, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Image and Text (South Africa), and New Design Ideas (Azerbaijan). 

Saki Mafundikwa is the founder and director of the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA) his country’s first graphic design and new media college. He has an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University. He is a design educator, designer, author, filmmaker and farmer. His book, Afrikan Alphabets: the Story of Writing in Africa was published in 2004. Besides being of historical importance, it is also the first book on Afrikan typography. His award-winning first film, Shungu: The Resilience of a People premiered at 2009’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). He has been published widely on design and cultural issues and is currently working on the first Afrikan Design Textbook

Steven McCarthy is Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He conceived of the Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards and chaired the jury in both 2016 and 2017. 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 130+ 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, Jury Chair, is Professor of Graphic Design and leads the new Design & Visual Communications MFA at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative to co-design with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to generate sustainable local outcomes supporting self-determination. She has lectured and published about social and co-design, recently co-authoring “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. 

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, researcher and educator she lectures and broadcasts widely and her writings have appeared in numerous international design publications and edited books. Her recent books include: co-editor of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson), and The School of Art (Wide Eyed) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is a Fellow of the International Society of Typographic Designers and the Royal Society of Arts.

The Design Incubation Communication Design Awards 2018

2018 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories— Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service.

Call for Entries: Deadline, May 31, 2018

CATEGORY: SCHOLARSHIP CREATIVE WORK

Works in Process

Scholarship: Creative Work Award Winner

George Garrastegui
Assistant Professor
Communication Design
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

What Does Democratic Design Look Like? Establishing the Center for Design in the Public Interest at the University of California, Davis

Scholarship: Creative Work Award Runner Up

Susan Verba
Professor
University of California, Davis

CATEGORY: SCHOLARSHIP PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Unawarded

CATEGORY: TEACHING

Lowering Barriers to Access at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Teaching Award Winner

Helen Armstrong
Associate Professor
North Carolina State University

CATEGORY: SERVICE

LEAP Dialogues: The Educators Guide

Service Award Winner

Mariana Amatullo
Associate Professor
Parsons School of Design, The New School

Andrew Shea
Assistant Professor
Parsons School of Design, The New School

Jennifer May
Director, Designmatters
ArtCenter College of Design

Recognition of excellence through peer review in scholarship, teaching, and service is fundamental to the professional development of communication design academics. To support this need, Design Incubation established the Communication Design Educators Awards in 2016.

An independent jury of esteemed design educators is invited by the Awards Jury Chair. This year’s jury chair, Maria Rogal, invited these internationally recognized jurors: Jorge Meza Aguilar, Ruki Ravikumar, Wendy Siuyi Wong, and Steven McCarthy. Rogal writes, “this jury reflects the diverse perspectives and experiences that exist in communication design today.”

The awards acknowledge faculty accomplishments in the areas of published research, creative work, teaching, and service. The award processes and procedures are rigorous, transparent, and objective. They reflect Design Incubation’s mission to foster professional development and discourse within the design community.

This year, award entries are open February 1, 2018 – May 31, 2018 via the online application. An overview of the awards program is on our website.

We are excited to announce Bloomsbury Publishing is sponsoring this year’s awards.

The 2018 Jury

Steven McCarthy is Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He conceived of the Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards and chaired the jury in both 2016 and 2017. 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.

Jorge Meza Aguilar is Professor of Strategic Design and Provost for Outreach and Collaboration at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where he founded the Bachelor in Interactive Design and the Master in Strategic Design and Innovation programs. He is widely recognized as an expert in strategic design and is the founding Director of Estrategas Digitales which focuses on research, strategic design, branding, trend forecasting, branding, Internet, and digital media. Meza is also a consultant and entreprenuer and holds degrees in art, graphic design, and systems engineering. Previously, he studied in and worked as a designer in Poland at Advertising Agency Schulz.

Ruki Ravikumar is Director of Education at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, a position she has held since April 2017. She joined the museum following thirteen years of service at the University of Central Oklahoma, where she held successive positions as professor of graphic design; director of graduate programs; chair of the Department of Design; assistant dean; and most recently, as associate dean of the College of Fine Arts & Design. In addition to her practice as an educator and published researcher in the areas of intersections between graphic design and culture and their impact on design education, she is also an award winning graphic designer. Further, she has served in leadership roles at the local and national levels of AIGA, the professional association for design.

Maria Rogal, Jury Chair, is Professor of Graphic Design, School of Art + Art History at the University of Florida and was Interim Director from 2015–2017. She is the founder of Design for Development (D4D), an award-winning initiative to co-design with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to generate sustainable and responsible local outcomes. She has lectured and published about D4D, recently co-authoring “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.

Wendy Siuyi Wong is Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Design at the York University, Toronto, Canada. She has established an international reputation as an expert in Chinese graphic design history and Chinese comic art history. She is the author of Hong Kong Comics: A History of Manhua, published by Princeton Architectural Press (2002). She is a contributor to the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design (2012), The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design (2015), and acts as a regional editor of the Greater China region for the Encyclopedia of East Asian Design to be published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Also, Dr. Wong has served as an editorial board member of Journal of Design History.