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AIGA Design Conference Design Educators Community (DEC) Track Digital Exhibition

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Thank you for visiting the digital exhibition for the AIGA DEC Track at the Margins AIGA National Conference in October 2024!

Ten posters were accepted and went through a double-blind peer review process. Overall, nearly 140 submissions were received for the Design Educators Community Track, with 28% of participants accepted.

The digital exhibit is listed below alphabetically, and the title links to each piece:

Download the Abstract Book Here

Nida Abdullah

She/Her

Associate Professor, Pratt Institute
Nida Abdullah is an interdisciplinary maker, researcher and educator whose approach is rooted in softness and slowness as practice of refusal. Her research centers gota adornment in textile design. Through gota, she explores embodied making as forms of witnessing. She engages with inherited lineages of materials, presences, memories, bodies, temporals.

Gota as Mode of Understanding

This visual essay presents an ongoing creative and critical inquiry. This is a research inquiry that explores making practices surrounding a textile adornment material “gota”, which traces its roots to the pre-colonial Indian sub-continent. This essay consists of compositions investigating the gota material. The compositions in this series explore the practice of embodied making as a form of witnessing. The series engages with an inherited lineage of practices, materials, presences, histories, bodies, temporals, and imposed borders. In this way, the research examines gota’s (also known as gota patti, gota kinara, zari work, or Lappe ka kaam) socio-cultural significance as a visual communication object. This inquiry highlights marginalized ways of knowledge production and transfer in mainstream design education, which is often overlooked in favor of more dominant narratives and practices. While this exploration explores marginalized ways of knowing and making, it also advocates for the right to opacity, the right to remain unknowable (Édouard Glissant).

View Nida Abdullah’s Poster PDF

Gota is an ornamental embroidery technique which originates in pre-colonial India. It traces its lineage through a cross-cultural fascination between the Mughals and the Persians. This shared interest in embellishment created a fertile ground for the development of gota in pre-colonial India, where materials and labor were easily exploitable. Gota developed into an appliqué and embroidery technique using gold and silver tinsel thread (known aszari) onto fabrics such as cotton, chiffon and silk. It has distinct pleating, twisting or folding style markers which make up its visual language. Gota adorned objects are forms of knowledge transfer across many generations, typically handed down from mother to daughter. The use of precious metal and intricate hand work made it accessible historically only to the royalty, wealthy class, where the technique was used on elaborate dresses for occasions, especially weddings. For those of less wealth, these dresses would cost a lifetime’s savings and possibly even debt to its owners. In this way, gota becomes an object that transfers with it a kind of soft power as it is typically handed from woman to woman. This inquiry explores materials and embodied making as ways of knowing and understanding. These textile compositions in this series include multilingual typography, exploring a shared cultural meaning and memory across subcontinental diasporic adornment practice.

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Mills Dray

They/Them
Educator and Design Strategist
HDK- Valand, Gothenburg University

Mills Dray is a designer and educator working with systems change and co-production. They have designed and facilitated programs of change in collaboration with organizations, school networks, charities, and local + central governments. Mills’ material practice works with themes of play, grief, and queerness to explore spaces of change and emergence.

Queer Diagramming

Diagrams, both conceptually and as artifacts, are used as a language in the context of transformation and change (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987), serving as artifacts that conceptualize new futures and as a process for ideation. This visual essay shares diagramming as a pedagogical approach that aims to queer strategic and systemic design practices. The essay introduces the approach as a conceptual framework and outlines four qualities of the approach with supporting imagery and diagrams. As a designer who identifies as genderqueer, I explore the potential of this approach as an embodied and relational practice within design pedagogy and reflect on how bodies in transition can support processes of transition in organizations. In their dual function of process and outcome, diagrams offer a middle space for articulating complexity whilst holding onto the embodied mess of practice. Drawing, as a process, offers an alternative to reductive sense-making and instead embraces complexity, ambiguity, and non-linearity, rejecting the finality of fixed strategic or design methods. Queer diagramming creates the space for embodying transition and deepening capacity for “a continuous state of becoming, where reality remains fluid and open to further ways of relating” (Pollock, 2017). Through raising questions aimed as design practitioners in a teaching space, I explore the entangled relationship between bodies in transition and transformative change in strategic and systemic design using the context of drawing and diagramming as an exploratory approach. Therefore, through the poster format, I will communicate the possibility of a queer diagrammatic practice. One that aims to create a collective experimental space where students and teachers can move towards collaborative and transformational practices of design, and hope to open ourselves up to new ways of relating and becoming.

View Mills Dray’s Poster PDF

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Alexandria Fogarty

She/Her
Graphic & Interactive Design Professor
Minnesota State University Moorhead

Alex Fogarty has over 20 years’ experience in web & print design and children’s television. She designed for Nick Jr. programming throughout the 1990’s and 00’s and has been an associate professor of Graphic & Interactive Design at Minnesota State University Moorhead since 2013.

Embracing Immersive Tech from the Margins

Immersive media has been on the margins of mass adoption for nearly a decade.  Just as graphic design educators have incorporated user experience and interaction design considerations since the dawn of the web and the “handheld” revolution, knowledge of designing for immersive experiences may fall into our purview.  Yet immersive media can be a big challenge for traditional 2D designers – it often involves 3D software and computer programming.  As design educators, how can we prepare for this potential adoption when opting in can feel daunting with its steep learning curve in some areas, and may require a whole new skill set in others? A potential avenue of study and practice can start with understanding immersive concepts and exploring their intersection with traditional UI/UX principles. Knowledge of terms such as agency, presence, and immersion can complement and extend traditional graphic design and interactive media practice and project-based learning. Too often we define or imagine immersive technology as only virtual reality (VR), where a head-mounted device (HMD) is worn – however augmented reality (AR), extended reality (XR), and mixed reality (MR) can all be explored by leveraging web-based technologies. To explore immersive tech in web-based applications can help put it within reach of many and can challenge students to develop projects that engage with immersive concepts, but also gives them practice in user experience principles. 

Includes:

View Alexandria Fogarty’s Poster PDF

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Jennifer Kowalski

She/Her
Assistant Professor
Lehigh University

Jenny Kowalski is an Assistant Professor at Lehigh University teaching courses on graphic design and user experience design. Her work explores interactions between text and image, between designer and audience, and between physical and digital space. Her research interests include design for accessibility, creative coding, and tactile craft.

Physical Pixels: Using Cross Stitch to Explore More a Mindful Design Process

It has never been faster to make images. Anyone with an internet connection can now conjure visuals with a few quick clicks on a keyboard. Life in our digital world can feel like a never-ending barrage of images. This constant stream may or may not have a basis in reality, but it overwhelms the visual senses. No one can keep up with the speed of today’s visual culture. Any attempt to do so ends in doomscrolling. 

What then, might it mean to slow things down on purpose? Cross stitch—embroidery made from small “x” shapes—is a slow craft that forces you to examine each individual pixel in a design, one by one. It builds a process of deep looking. The physical repetition of stitching acts as a form of meditation. The resulting work is small, personal, and off-screen. 

This visual essay examines how cross stitch as a form of intentionally slow design can interact with and comment on technology; how it emphasizes detail in typography, color, and form; and how it allows for a practice of mindfulness.

View Jennifer Kowalski’s Poster PDF

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Jena Marble

She/Her
Clinical Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jena Marble is a graphic designer, art director, and educator with extensive experience in both private and public sectors. In the classroom, she blends hands-on instruction with real-world expertise to create practical learning environments. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence and graphic design, exploring how AI can reshape creative processes.

Reimagining Tenure: Bringing Clinical Professors in from the Margins

You shouldn’t need an MFA to receive tenure in design education. This visual essay explores a seemingly simple yet profound issue. As a professor of practice — a university instructor without a graduate degree but with extensive industry experience — I argue that requiring a terminal degree for tenure perpetuates elitism, marginalizing individuals with valuable professional insights.

While the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is widely regarded as the terminal degree in design education, it has become a gatekeeper in academia, often seen as a prerequisite for tenure-track positions. This is happening in fields where practical industry experience is crucial. Standards from organizations like AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) and CAA (College Art Association) advocate for flexibility in promotion and tenure policies, recognizing the contributions of design educators with significant professional practice. 

Yet, most tenure-track faculty positions still mandate an MFA.

This degree requirement raises important questions: Are accomplished professionals dissuaded from entering academia because they might lack the perceived “necessary” credentials? In fields where practical application complements theoretical knowledge, shouldn’t diversity of experience be equally valued?

Recent trends in higher education underscore the importance of this issue. With declining undergraduate enrollment and growing concerns about career prospects in creative industries — particularly given the rise of AI and automation — hiring educators with broad industry experience becomes increasingly important. These professionals can offer insights into current trends and future directions, helping students navigate the evolving landscape.

We should treat extensive professional experience as a credential in lieu of a terminal degree. Recognizing professors of practice would bring valuable — and necessary — changes to hiring and tenure processes. By expanding the definition of expertise, institutions can remain competitive and support well-rounded student development. This, in turn, strengthens faculty, ultimately contributing to a more engaging and effective educational environment.

This visual essay explores these ideas through a mix of visual and textual narratives, highlighting the context of current tenure standards and the potential benefits of more inclusive policies. By sparking dialogue about academic and professional pathways in design education, we can address complex challenges faced by design programs and contribute to a larger conversation about adapting to changing professional landscapes.

View Jena Marble’s Poster PDF

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Kathy Mueller

She/Her
Associate Professor
Temple University

Kathy Mueller is a co-founder of the United States for Abortion. Mueller is an associate professor and department chair at Temple University’s Klein College of Media & Communication in Philadelphia. Her design work has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, HOW International, PRINT, and others.

Ali Place

She/They
Associate Professor of Graphic Design
University of Arkansas

Alison Place is a designer, educator and writer whose work explores the intersection of design and feminist theory. She is the author of Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design (MIT Press 2023). She is an associate professor of graphic design at the University of Arkansas School of Art.

United States for Abortion: Generating a New Visual Rhetoric for Reproductive Justice

For decades, the majority of Americans have supported the right to safe and legal abortion, yet it has been continually under attack in the United States. The Dobbs decision ended constitutional protection in June 2022, leaving abortion access to be determined by the states. Public support for legal abortion remains largely unchanged, with 63% saying it should be legal in all or most cases, yet more than half the states in the country now partially or completely ban access to abortion. This research poster addresses the ways in which design plays a role in the stigmatization, disinformation and visual rhetoric of the current abortion discourse, and proposes a new visual rhetoric through a community-centered project called United States for Abortion.

Abortion continues to be stigmatized despite being a common experience, with nearly one in four women in the U.S. having an abortion by age 45. People who receive abortions often hide their experiences, which obscures the frequency and perpetuates the stigma. A major contributing factor to this stigma is the visual rhetoric of anti-abortion factions, which have dominated public discourse for decades. Disinformation about the science of human life, coupled with graphic images of developing fetuses, are intended to incite shame and fear, and to obscure people’s lived experiences.

The visual rhetoric of the pro-choice movement has also been reductive. This research poster calls out the exclusionary, insufficient, and counterproductive rhetoric in the pro-choice movement that has hindered the public’s understanding of abortion. For example, outdated images of hangers spread the misconception that illegal abortions are unsafe, creating fear among those who may want to manage their own abortion. The visual rhetoric of the abortion rights movement must shift and expand to acknowledge the contemporary mechanisms of abortion, address the wide range of reasons people get abortions, and speak inclusively about who gets abortions.

The United States for Abortion project was created in 2022 to generate a community-sourced visual rhetoric for abortion rights that features diverse and nuanced perspectives. Through a call for submissions that is currently open, designers in all 50 states, Washington D.C., Indigenous tribal nations, and the territory of Puerto Rico are invited to create artwork in support of access to legal abortion. This poster showcases current artwork and also invites new contributors—design practitioners, educators, and students. We are building a pluralistic collective of voices that speak to the nuance and complexity of abortion today, addressing critical issues situated at the margins of the broader debate—such as trans rights, abortion as healthcare, and reproductive justice as social, racial, and environmental justice. By enlisting contributors based on state, we respond to abortion as a state issue and emphasize regional political contexts. Through this project, we hope to build solidarity across identities and borders in the collective fight for abortion justice.

View Kathy Mueller’s and Alison Place’s Poster PDF

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Cindy Raspiller

She/Her
Graduate Student
San José State University

Cindy Raspiller has been designing in the Bay Area for over a decade, and is currently pursuing an MDes in Experience Design. She is passionate about empowering visual communications students with tools and methods to design responsibly, so they can meaningfully contribute towards a more sustainable and equitable future.

Concept Map: Moving Beyond Human-Centered in Postsecondary Design Education

Human-centered design is an approach to problem solving that starts with building a deep empathy for the people you’re designing for; this method focuses on delivering solutions that make people’s lives better. But what if a human- centered mindset doesn’t make our lives better? What if, by placing human needs at the center of everything we design, we’re reinforcing the idea of humanity as beneficiaries of Earth’s ecology, rather than a part of an interrelated ecosystem? To de-center the human in the design process is to acknowledge that the welfare of humanity depends on the welfare of all life on Earth. Students of visual communications design feel this disconnect between the methods they are taught and the complexity of problems facing the planet. Traditional design practices exacerbate global issues like climate change. Introducing undergraduate design students to projects and methods beyond human-centered allows them to explore ecologically sustainable practices and encourages change and action in the industry from the point of entry.

My graduate thesis research explores what designing sustainably and responsibly can mean for design educators, students, and professionals. This will inform the development of projects and activities that empower educators to help students be responsible participants in a better future. This poster is a concept map that gives visual structure to the ideas and research behind my thesis proposal. An analysis of modern design priorities and trends, a critical analysis of current Visual Communications BA/BFA Learning Outcomes in the United States, and the synthesis of data from interviews with students, professors, and professional designers has led me to develop The Principles of Sustainable Design, an homage to Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design, which attempts to define what it means to design sustainably right now. In addition, I’ve studied the different ways professors currently address sustainability in their classrooms and organized the approaches into 5 Levels of Sustainability Pedagogy in Postsecondary Design Education. The entirety of this research will be displayed in a way that acts as a guide to both the current state and the future of sustainability in postsecondary design education.

In addition to displaying my research, the concept map will disclose my reflections on

this work so far, and explore the next steps as I continue into my final year of study. I hope to make new connections and start conversations around this topic with other students and design educators. In immersing ourselves in more than human-centered design perspectives, our work can encourage action toward a thriving world beyond the human experience.

View Cindy Raspiller’s Poster PDF

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Flory Sanabria

She/Her
Graduate Student
University of Florida

She holds an MFA in Design and Visual Communications from the University of Florida. Passionate about design education, design for belonging, community engagement, and fostering inclusive design practices, . Experienced instructor, teaching courses like Typography, Visual Methods, and Design & Identity. She is committed to empowering students and creating meaningful community-focused projects.

Meaningful Connections: Awareness, Belonging and Community in Latinas with ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has historically been understood through research focused predominantly on male symptoms, often overlooking how the condition manifests in women (Shaw et al., 2012). This gap in knowledge is especially pronounced for Latinas, who face additional cultural barriers such as stigma around mental health and a lack of culturally-informed diagnostic tools (Mojtabai et al., 2010). This case study, drawn from my MFA thesis, addresses the intersection of ADHD and Latinx women’s identity, with a particular focus on Spanish-speaking Latinas, either born and raised in Latin America or residing in the U.S. Spanish-speaking Latinas, unlike their English-speaking counterparts, typically have fewer resources and opportunities to manage ADHD due to ongoing cultural taboos surrounding mental health, especially in Latin America.

This project centers on the creation of “sharing and making” spaces designed to foster belonging and reduce the sense of othering among Latinas diagnosed with ADHD. Through participatory art and design exercises, such as zine-making and body-mapping, participants engaged in culturally relevant interactions that revolved around shared elements of identity, including food, language, and experiences of social marginalization. By crafting artifacts that engaged with ADHD in ways that resonated with Latinx identity, the project provided an opportunity for participants to navigate their condition and connect organically through shared lived experiences.

The research draws heavily on my own lived experiences and adopts a methodology grounded in Indigenous Research (Smith), Horizontalidad (Corona Berkin), and Testimonios (Perez Hubert). These frameworks guided the structure of the workshops, fostering meaningful conversations and offering participants a platform to share and document their experiences of neurodiversity through culturally informed methods.

Importantly, this research highlights the necessity of incorporating neurodiversity into design education. As educators, we are responsible for equipping the next generation of designers with the skills and perspectives needed to create inclusive and accessible designs for all users. The growing number of individuals identified as neurodivergent underscores the importance of this shift. By embedding neurodiversity into design thinking methodologies, we can address the needs of historically marginalized populations, such as Latinas with ADHD, and foster a more equitable design process.

Moreover, the stigma surrounding neurodivergent conditions, particularly in academic environments, has hindered greater understanding and acceptance. By integrating neurodiversity into design curricula, we not only challenge these stigmas but also ensure that future designers are equipped to create products and services that accommodate diverse cognitive styles and abilities. The aim of this project is to demonstrate how culturally relevant, experience-based design interactions can empower marginalized communities while simultaneously enriching the broader field of design education.

In conclusion, design is inherently about improving lives and solving problems. This project demonstrates how design can be used to cater to underrepresented communities, such as Latinas with ADHD, creating a sense of belonging and preventing the harm caused by social exclusion. By bringing neurodiversity into the forefront of design education, we can cultivate a more inclusive, accessible future for all.

View Flory Sanabria’s Poster PDF

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Anmol Shrivastava

She/They
Assistant Professor
Illinois State University

Anmol Shrivastava (she/they) is a non-binary designer and educator from India. Her focus is on cultural and social awareness, with the aim of broadening the scope of design beyond traditional Western norms. Collaboration, particularly within her own cultural community, along with research and inclusion, are at the heart of her plural design practice.

Learning Kaithi: Design’s Role in Cultural Preservation

Kaithi (KAE-THEE), also known as Kayathi or Kayasthi, was once a widely used script in northern India, now classified as “major extinct.” It flourished alongside prominent scripts like Devanagari but has since faded from common use. Derived from ‘Kayastha’, a cultural group traditionally known as scribes, Kaithi holds deep personal significance for members of this community.

With limited formal resources available, self-teaching became a vital method for reclaiming ancestral knowledge and resisting colonial erasure of indigenous scripts. Geographical distance from northern India necessitated creative problem-solving, relying on archival research, design projects, and global collaboration. This snippet of my process serves as a case study on taking small, yet significant steps toward decolonizing and decentralizing traditional education systems.

This visual essay documents the self-guided process of reviving an extinct script, piecing together long-lost archives, creating educational resources, and reestablishing cultural connections. It highlights the challenges and rewards of navigating the messy, yet meaningful journey of unearthing and rebuilding from fragmented histories, leading toward the revival of Kaithi.

View Anmol Shrivastava’s Poster PDF

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Emily B. Yang

She/Her
Part-Time Faculty
Parsons School of Design

Emily B. Yang is a Brooklyn-based artist, designer, and educator. Her work focuses on the intersection of craft, design research, and speculative design. She teaches at Parsons School of Design and holds a Master in Design Engineering from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Social Printmaking in Chinatown as Equitable Design Research and Education

This visual essay advocates for integrating craft practices into design research and education as a method to expand qualitative research methodologies. The central research questions are: How might community block printing workshops, as a form of design education and qualitative research, decolonize traditional design research methods? Can craft-based design education foster more equitable, participatory, and collaborative approaches; moving away from extractive practices where knowledge is gathered without considering the needs or active involvement of the community?

Methodology

In July 2024, I facilitated a community block printing workshop at the New York Public Library in Chinatown, with tailored sessions for adults and youth. Participants were taught block printing techniques and invited to create prints reflecting their interpretation of “what the library means to them,” a prompt developed in response to the library’s budget cuts and reduced hours. Participants produced multiple copies of their designs, exchanging prints and sharing the stories behind their work. One print from each participant was donated to the library to create a collective artwork, capturing the community’s shared memory and vision of the library space.

Block printing—a traditional craft—was intentionally chosen as the primary method for this qualitative design research. By leveraging block printing, a craft rooted in East and South Asian traditions, the workshop challenged the dominance of Western art forms in design research. It encouraged dialogue around diverse artistic expressions, providing participants with a culturally familiar craft skill to share their stories. Hosting the workshop in a public library—a vital community space—and displaying the outcomes in the same space further emphasized placemaking, strengthening the sense of belonging and ownership within the neighborhood.

This approach also contributes to decolonizing design practices by positioning community members as co-leaders in the design process. Local artists and educators were engaged as facilitators, ensuring the workshop was driven by community knowledge and perspectives. To resist extractive research practices, the workshop focused on skill-building, empowering participants with techniques that enabled them to express and share their personal narratives. This methodology not only amplified the voices of the Chinatown community but also fostered self-determination through the medium of craft.

Conclusion
This proposal contributes to the broader movement toward inclusivity and diversity in design education and research by integrating traditional craft practices like block printing. Acknowledging the cultural significance of these crafts fosters a more inclusive design pedagogy that centers diverse voices and perspectives. Craft practices can play a pivotal role in decolonizing design spaces, promoting new systems of shared knowledge, and leading to richer, more community-oriented research outcomes.

View Emily B. Yang’s Poster PDF


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