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 Journal, and the recent collection After the Bauhaus, Before the Internet: A History of Graphic Design Pedagogy.

I am currently an assistant 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.

Recent updates: You can read a brief profile of my research in Aggie Toppins’s new book Thinking through Graphic Design History: Challenging the Canon.