Maryland Institute College of Art

GD MFA Faculty

Ellen Lupton, Director

Ellen Lupton is Director of the GD MFA program. She is also curator of contemporary design at Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution in New York City. She has curated and authored numerous exhibitions and books, including Skin: Surface, Substance, and Design (2002), National Design Triennial (2000, 2003, 2006), Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age (1998), Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture (1996), and Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993). She is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal for lifetime achievement.

Jennifer Cole Phillips, Associate Director

Jennifer Cole Phillips is Associate Director of the GD MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and Principal of J. Cole Phillips Design. She is co-author, with Ellen Lupton, of Graphic Design The New Basics. Before joining MICA, Phillips was a tenured Associate Professor in the School of Communications Design at the University of Baltimore. She has an MFA and BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been included in the annuals of Graphis Design, Graphis Poster, Print, the Art Director’s Club of Metropolitan Washington and New York, AIGA 50, and the ACD100 Show, among others. She served for eight years on the AIGA of Board of Directors.

Faculty, 2010-2011

Brockett Horne is a graphic designer who first learned about typography when examining letterforms on billboards from the backseat of her parent’s station wagon along I-95 just outside of her hometown. Her creative work is inspired by a desire to encourage the spectator to learn while looking. She is chair of graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, USA, where she teaches fierce sophomores and daring seniors. She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (with double thesae in art history and graphic design). She is a past Rotary International Scholar, has been exhibited and honored with multiple design awards, and has work in the permanent collection of the RISD Museum of Art. She currently serves on the Design Educators Steering Committee of the AIGA.

David Barringer writes fiction, essays and design criticism. He is the author of the design books There’s Nothing Funny About Design and American Mutt Barks in the Yard: Emigre 68 and the novels American Home Life and Johnny Red, as well as several fiction collections. His writing has appeared in Voice, Eye, I.D., and the New York Times Book Review. He is the winner of the 2008 Winterhouse Award for Design Writing & Criticism.

Kimberly Walker graduated with distinction from both the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA in graphic design) and The Colorado College (BA in english). With this diverse background she has been educated in researching, writing and interpreting content, and then visualizing that content through design. For the last eight years she has designed for the multidisciplinary firm, Malcolm Grear Designers. At MGD she worked on varied design projects—from print/publication design and identity/branding programs, to interactive and exhibition/environmental design—for The Nature Conservancy, Lasker Foundation, Harvard University Art Museums, International Institute, Anthony Quinn Foundation, and Brown University. Her work has been featured in numerous design publications and exhibitions. Walker is an adjunct faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) where she teaches Advanced Publication Design in the undergraduate (BFA) and graduate (MFA) graphic design programs.

Andres Zapata is a communicator. He ensures progress through connection, understanding, simplicity and clarity. He insists that strong communication makes everything better. Andres has been an adjunct professor at MICA since 2001. When he is not teaching, he runs idfive, a boutique marketing and advertising agency in Baltimore. As an accomplished usability and experience designer, Andres is always looking for ways to simplify, enhance and improve interfaces. Andres’ client work has been recognized with numerous awards including a Webby, several Addies, Maryland’s Best, and the New York Art Director’s Club awards. He has a B.A. in sociology and communication from Goucher College, an M.A. in design from the University of Baltimore, and an M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Metropolis, Architect, Urbanite, and The Next American City, among others. She is the author of Urban Palimpsest, a blog about cities, culture, and design.