Faculty
Jennifer Cole Phillips
Director, Graphic Design MFA
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.
Shiva Nallaperumal
Designer-In-Residence, Graphic Design MFA
Shiva Nallaperumal is a graphic designer, type designer and art director from Chennai India and co-founder (with Juhi Vishnani) of the plural design practice November. He has worked with a wide variety of clients from the Fashion, film, news, art and tech industries on Identity systems, printed matter, editorial design, exhibitions, interactive media and typefaces. As a type designer he has worked with Typotheque, Bold Monday, Sharp Type, Commercial Type and Lost Type Co-op. In 2017 he became the first graphic designer to be included in Forbes India’s 30 under 30. In 2019 he was inducted into the prestigious Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) as a member.
Ellen Lupton
Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair
Ellen Lupton is the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair at MICA. She has authored and edited numerous books on design processes, including "Thinking with Type," "Graphic Design Thinking," “Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers,” and "Health Design Thinking." She has curated numerous exhibitions at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, including “Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master,” “Face Values: Understanding Artificial Intelligence,” “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision,” and “Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics.” She is an AIGA Gold Medalist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Visiting Artists
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.
Adam Maida & Shira Inbar talk to first-year GD MFA
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
Accordion fold animations from Risograph workshop with Elaine Lopez & Shivani Parasnis
Elaine Lopez demonstrates Risograph printing process to first-year GD MFA
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
Workshop with Shira Inbar, Adam Maida, and the class of 2023
Lynn Chen & Naige Guo spectate poster making workshop series
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
Christina Chahyadi & Hui Zeng hang up their workshop posters