I am a design historian interested in design’s relationship to histories of labor, technology, and capital. I studied graphic design in the late 1990s and graduated in 2000; a few years later, I dropped out of the profession to concentrate on activist publishing projects. For most of the next two decades, I juggled precarious employment and two graduate degrees. Then in 2022, I completed my dissertation on graphic design theory and the history of automation. My writing has appeared in Amalgam, Jacobin, Post 45, and the recent collection After the Bauhaus, Before the Internet: A History of Graphic Design Pedagogy.

I currently work as a visiting associate professor at the UIC School of Design. I also maintain an active (but slow) practice in editorial and book design. If you have questions about my research or ideas for a potential collaboration, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Updates, winter 24/25: Chicago Designs: Teaching Community-Based Histories was named runner-up in the Design Incubation Educators Awards. • My research was profiled in Aggie Toppins’s new book Thinking through Graphic Design History: Challenging the Canon • I recently presented papers on the College Art Association panel Design History as Labor History and at the New Directions in Design History symposium.