The McKinney Visiting Artist Series, through the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture, + Design, brings in prominent artists every semester from a variety of practices. The artist leads a workshop or critique for students within that practice and gives lectures open to the campus and community. However, because of COVID-19, everything is now on Zoom. One of the graphic design visiting artists, Marcia Lausen, lectured on Zoom this past Friday and I was lucky enough to attend and hear her wisdom on design. A fun fact is that Marcia received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from Yale School of Art. Now, she is the director of the School of Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago and founder of the Chicago office of Studio/lab. Her work has been exhibited at the AIGA National Design Center; Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Cooper Hewitt Design Museum; Index, Copenhagen; and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. As you can see, she is a pretty big deal in the design industry. In addition, following the 2000 presidential election, Marcia played a leading role in an election design reform initiative that resulted in federal guidelines for the design of ballots and election materials. Later, publishing a book, Design for Democracy, in 2007. In many ways, I am inspired by Marcia and all she has accomplished since she graduated from Indiana University.
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