Ellen Lupton
Founding Director

Ellen Lupton is Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, where recent projects have included Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, How Posters Work, Beautiful Users, and Graphic Design—Now in Production. As director of the Graphic Design MFA Program at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in Baltimore, Lupton has authored and edited numerous books on design processes, many of them in collaboration with graduate students, including Thinking with Type, Type on Screen, Graphic Design Thinking, and Graphic Design: The New Basics (with Jennifer Cole Phillips). She received her BFA from The Cooper Union in 1985 and her Doctorate in Communication Design from University of Baltimore (2008). 

Jennifer Cole Phillips
Director

Jennifer Cole Phillips is a designer, educator, and author. She is Director of the Graphic Design MFA Program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and operates a design practice specializing in visual identity, publication design, and branding. The heart of her work and teaching is a passion for design innovation and formal rigor. Her design work has received awards of excellence from Graphis Design, Graphis Poster, Print Magazine, The Art Director’s Clubs of New York and Metropolitan Washington, AIGA 50, and the Society of Typographic Arts 100 Show, among others. Professor Phillips earned her MFA and BFA in Graphic Design from RISD. She is co-author (with Ellen Lupton), of Graphic Design The New Basics (Second Edition, 2015), and contributing author, art director, and mentor for several other titles published by Princeton Architectural Press. In 2014, she won the prestigious MICA Trustees Fellowship Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2016, she was awarded a Sappi Ideas That Matter Grant for a social design project partnership with Johns Hopkins University focusing on puberty education tools for inner city girls.

Jason Gottlieb
Associate Director

Jason Gottlieb received a BFA in Graphic Design (w/ Digital Media Concentration) from the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and an MFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has worked as a print, interactive, and motion designer at top firms in the DC metropolitan area. Jason is an avid programmer and technophile with a love for storytelling, humor, and the absurd. Jason’s work has been recognized by Communication Arts, Print, Step, GD, Graphis, AIGA, ADCMW, Adobe, and Core 77. Jason has taught at The Corcoran College of Art + Design, Johns Hopkins’ Department of Art as Applied to Medicine, and the Maryland Institute College of Art where he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses and was the recipient of the 2014 George Bunting Teaching Fellowship.

Antonio Alcalá
Graduate Faculty

Antonio Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. After working as a book designer and freelance graphic designer, Alcalá opened Studio A in 1988. Since then his studio has won awards of excellence in design from local, national and international design institutions including AIGA, Print, Communication Arts and Graphis. His clients include the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts, National Geographic Society, Folger Shakespeare Library, The Phillips Collection and the Smithsonian Institution.

Visiting Artists are an integral part of the GD MFA program. Throughout the year, guest artists drawn from the local and national design community come to MICA to conduct weekend workshops and to serve as critics in the classroom. Our visiting artists provide feedback on student work, discuss their own work and careers, and conduct workshops that explore the design process.

2016–17 → 

Emilio Martinez Poppe

Abraham Burickson

Ayden LeRoux

Rick Valicenti

Jackie Littman

Eric Gunther

Mark Mulder

Rianne Petter

IDEO: Nicholas Dupey, Mitch Sinclair, and Natalya Zahn

Abbott Miller

Jeremy Hoffman

Liz Danzico

Prem Krishnamurthy

Sarah Hromack

2015–16 →

Abbott Miller

Andrew Losowsky

Bonnie Siegler

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Eric Gunther

Jackie Littman

Jeremy Hoffman

Mark Mulder

Other Means

Rianne Petter

2014–2015 →

Abbott Miller

Andrew Losowsky

Jessica Karle

Jiminie Ha

Silas Munro

Tim Hoover

Triboro

Willy Wong

2013–2014 →

Abbott Miller

Chip Kidd

Daniel D'Oca

Glen Cummings

Keetra Dean Dixon

Krissi Xenakis

Michèle Champagne

Silas Munro

Stephen Farrell

2012–13 →

Abbott Miller

Adam Michaels

Astrom/Zimmer

Jan Wilker

Johanna Drucker

Karin Fong

Keetra Dean Dixon

Krissi Xenakis

Natasha Jen

Paul Sahre

Rick Poynor

Silas Munro

2011–12 →

Abbott Miller

Alicia Cheng

JK Keller

Mike Perry

Rick Valicenti

Rob Giampietro

Stephen Farrell

Teddy Cruz

2010–11 →

Abbott Miller

Alicia Cheng

Alysha Naples

Axel Wieder

Denise Gonzales Crisp

Dmitri Siegel

Eric Gunther

Jonathan Barnbrook

Keetra Dean Dixon

Kenneth FitzGerald

Rob Giampietro

Sarah Gephart

Tal Leming

2009–10 →

Abbott Miller

Andrea Deszo

Antonio Alcalá

David Barringer

Georgie Stout

Luba Lukova

Martin Venezky

Paul Sahre

Peter Buchanan-Smith

Pum Lefebure

Toormix

2008–09 →

Abbott Miller

Alice Twemlow

Andrew Blauvelt

Cameron Sinclair

Curt Kotula

David Reinfurt

Dmitri Siegel

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo

Gail Anderson

Matt Stinchcomb

Mike Perry

Stefan Bucher

Tom Ockerse

2007–08 →

Abbott Miller

Carin Goldberg

Jenna Zilincar

Jessica Helfand

Laurie Rosenwald

Michael Bierut

Mike Perry

Peter and Davy Rothbart

Rob Weychert

Stephen Farrell

2006–07 →

Alicia Cheng

Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals

Dave Plunkert

Kevin Auer

Marian Bantjes

Marybeth Shaw

Peter Cho

Rick Valicenti