I freelance as an independent graphic & web designer, writer, researcher, and part-time professor located in Toronto, Canada. I specialize in: typography; accessibility; user interface & user experience (UI/UX*); branding; book; and editorial projects. I’m grateful to have been apart of over 75 projects, from small to large — working in senior leadership to production roles, working alongside talented coworkers. Most of my over 10 years of experience comes from large-scope public work for municipal, provincial, national, and international clients. For the past 5 years, I have been teaching at OCADU University in the Graphic Design and Industrial Design departments. As well as at George Brown College in the Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Front-End Design, and Brand Design programs.
I am a board member of the web-based archive Nor Design. Nor is a not-for-profit, co-operative and collective effort to document, preserve, and question the material culture in Canada on Turtle Island.
I am a 2024 community fellow grant recipient with the Center for Arts & Social Justice at VCFA (Vermont College of Fine Art) during 2024-2025. Thank you to Renata Baptista for the encouragement and vote of confidence to apply for this grant. You can read more about the Just A·S·C! project on the CASJ site.
In 2022, I launched The Anti-Subscription Catalogue {a-s-c.org}, a collection of software and websites which do not charge creative rent. I enjoy being apart of work that serves actual physical communities (instead of extracts from), provides access to education, tools, and generates fruitful dialogue instead of a monologue. Design that gives, rather than only takes.
I try to speak with and beside5 not for (see: CSC), and reduce the assumption that I know better than the communities that I think I’m serving. Although I find fulfilling delight and joy in creativity, I don’t believe in vocational awe and that the creative work is a reflection of my self-worth. Afterall, you can’t pay the rent in exposure. I appreciate consistency in experimentation in ways that can be understood. Especially when teaching, rendering meaning through form, without getting stuck in the drudges of theory. Getting stuck in the drudges of theory is a privilege. And design is full of classism. I am a recovering perfectionist, thanks to my graduate thesis advisor Natalia Ilyin who wrote about multiple directions in Chasing the Perfect. I believe that to actually reduce the problems of today, yesterday, and face the challenges of tomorrow requires actual collective action involving accessible research, multiple generations represented, an array of skillsets, and diverse approaches.
A note of gratitude: Thank you to my communities of family, friends, colleagues, mentors, students, and clients that continue to support me. I would not be where I am today, without you.
Since 2019 I have been teaching (educator means admin!) at OCAD University in the Graphic Design department (core courses Graphic Design 2, Type2, Type3, and the elective Interactive Media: Web); Industrial Design department (Interaction/Experience Design aka UI/UX).
Since 2019, I also have been teaching in the School of Design at George Brown College (core courses Interaction Design; Type2; Type3; Prototype/Experience Design; and Intro to Web).
Service: I often write letters of recommendation for students, and serve on annual juries for their graduating award shows. I review prospective student portfolios for prospective students. I facilitate workshops that encourage 'learn by doing' — and individual learning for collective output. In collaboration with Maryanne Casasanta I have designed and facilitated the following workshops and condensed courses:
I often collaborate with No Media on publishing projects — including redesigning the website of independent newspaper The Picton Gazette and on the newsletter Buckslip. BS was previously known as The Overprint, a now defunct newsletter lasting a year, of hot takes around the web. It was named by Bruce Sterling + Warren Ellis in WIRED Magazine as one of the best newsletters of 2016.
Previously, I was the design team lead at Office/Bureau, an independent design & interactive studio, which works within climate/environment, cultural, publishing, health, and educational sectors. For almost 5 years at O/B, as an intermediate, senior, and team lead — some of the notable public projects and initiatives have included:
I have worked with The Picton Gazette, the Year End Show (YES!) Grad Show in the School of Design at George Brown College, Myseum of Toronto, The Alpine Review, artist/filmmaker Felix Kalmenson, artist collective Pejvaks, writer/editor/journalist Chris Frey, Strathroy Museum, photographer Jesse Colin Jackson, the Urban Ecologies Conference, artist TALWST for the Art Gallery of Ontario and Verso Magazine at York University. Previous clients have included OCAD University, Canadian Business Magazine, Acura, GEICO, and Vistek. In 2016, I attended the first A School, A Park, a week-long graphic design workshop in Montréal, at 820 Plaza.
Recently I completed my MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Graphic Design at VCFA (Vermont College of Fine Arts) in December 2023. You can find a summary of the graduate thesis titled A Delicate Urgency: Reclaiming Creative Agency from under the Illusion of Digital Efficiency. For two years, I studied the patterns found between economics, labour, and technology that workers have faced since the 1600s. Fast forward to present-day 2024, that as creative workers, getting closer to our tools and software will be key to reclaiming creative agency. And to withstand our collective deskilling of expertise through automation. Sorry, that’s a mouthful. I’m working on clarity. Bear with me!
My undergraduate thesis won the medal in Graphic Design at OCADU, awarded to one graduate per year! Check out some of the project documentation at Typographic Obfuscation. This culminated in an exhibition curated by Felix Kalmenson in collaboration with Rouzbeh Akhbari.
For more, super smooth scroll down to Education
COMING SOON
COMING SOON
Memory Palace: Nurturing Your Creative Process, Remote Course Development & Delivery, OCAD University
Design at the Intersection of Accessibility and Inclusion: School of Design Panel Discussion, Remote, George Brown School of Design Year End Show
The Voice of Language, Workshop Development & Delivery (x13), OCAD University (2019-present)
VCFA MFA How Type Works: A Workshop with Tré Seals, Vermont, USA + Remote
VCFA MFA candidate in Graphic Design, Residency #2, Vermont, USA
VCFA MFA candidate in Graphic Design, Residency #1, Vermont, USA
End of an era with Albert Kwon, Don Black Linecasting Toronto, Remote Live Stream, Twitch
What have we learned from COVID-19 about online learning?, RGD Panel, Remote
Accessibility Lunch & Learn #2, Accessible PDFs, Office/Bureau
GBC Graduate Show, Panel for Student Awards, George Brown College
Covid-19
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Design Unseen, Group Show. Curated by Lauren Wickware, George Brown School of Design, DesignTO, 2019
Guest Lecturer, Accessibility is About Choice, OCAD University
Visiting Critic, Workshop: Lewis Nicholson, OCAD University
Design School: Layout: A Practical Guide for Students and Designers, Book, Rockport Publishers, New York
Letterforms with Robert Fones, Workshop, Art Museum at UofT, Toronto.
Accessibility Lunch & Learn #1, Accessibility is About Choice, Office/Bureau
Green Grass Syndrome, Group Show, Galaxie, Columbus, USA
Kak Vsegda/As Always, Publication with Felix Kalmenson, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto
ABZ-TXT, Workshop, Gallery G44, 401 Richmond, Toronto
Good Work, Group Show, East Room, Toronto.
Maybe a School Maybe a Park, Workshop, 820Plaza, Montréal
Project 31, Fundraiser Auction, OCAD University, Toronto
DDDD, with Rouzbeh Akhbari, 8 Eleven Gallery, Toronto
Typographic Obfuscation, Art Metropole, Toronto
Rivet 5, OCAD Student Press, Toronto
Off the Wall IV, Studio Couture, Detroit, USA
Rivet 3, OCAD Student Press, Toronto
Power of Ten Typography, Group Show, Great Hall, OCAD University, Toronto
A Coversation, with Anton Jeludkov (Inteview), Rough Work Press, Toronto
York University / Sheridan Entrance Scholarship, Toronto
Vermont College of Fine Art (VCFA)
MFA in Graphic Design thesis titled A Delicate Urgency: Reclaiming Creative Agency from under the Illusion of Digital Efficiency.
OCAD University
BDes graphic design with a primary focus on editorial, identity, typeface design, technology studies, critical thinking and thesis. My undergraduate thesis won the medal in Graphic Design at OCADU, awarded to one graduate per year!
York University / Sheridan (YSDN)
Graphic design with a primary focus on communication, psychology, typography, history of design and information design.
Bealart
Art Foundations program consisting of ten studios, as well a specializing year in sculpture, photography and commercial art.
I apply a site-specific approach rooted in a physical place to each project. Afterall, the word virtual actually can mean made to appear physical. 1 2 3 I’ve grown a greater appreciation for listening to subject matter experts — as much as leading a team — and sharing my own expertise and skills. I believe every project is different, and demands unique needs. So I refrain from taking a over-simplified, ideological 4, and formulaic approach (hi design thinking!). I try to reduce my assumptions (thank you design fiction!), and avoid jargon & buzzwords. Which especially in the tech sector, and as manufacturing moves to — and from commodities to experiences — does the biz love to invent in order to upsell hype cycles, grifts, and gimmicks. Sometimes, a brand is actually what people think of your product — and a website, is just a website, a tool for an organization, business, initiative, or mode of expression. That can be important, sure, though it’s rooted in our physical world, and not this obtuse, grandiose, transformative experience.
A Prehistory of the Cloud Tung-Hui Hu, MIT, 2015.
‘People think that data is in the cloud, but it’s not. It’s in the ocean.’ Adam Satariano, NYT, 2019.
Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence Kate Crawford, Yale University Press, 2021.
“Virtually all ideologues, of any variety, are fearful and insecure, which is why they are drawn to ideologies that promise prefabricated answers for all circumstances. — Dark Age Ahead” Jane Jacobs, Random House, 2004.
Thank you Silas Munro.