Rutgers MFA in Design accepting applications

The MFA in Design at Rutgers University is an innovative program that situates a critical, experimental, and speculative studio practice within a major public Research University. Through close personal attention in studio and seminar classes, we enable designers and artists to develop and realize their distinct research directions. The MFA encourages work that is grounded in scientific, aesthetic, political, or social research. All admitted students receive scholarship support, and other opportunities including teaching where appropriate.   

Our dedicated studios and excellent facilities are on our campus in New Brunswick, an hour from New York and Philadelphia. The curriculum interweaves studio work and theory with opportunities for collaboration with scholars across Rutgers. The program is at the heart of an interdisciplinary department that fosters and integrates a dynamic range of art and design practices. The MFA encourages applications from designers, artists, and interdisciplinary practitioners. Further details on the program and how to apply are here

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Ryan Kuo | 3/5

From “Puzzle”, a work from 2022 by Ryan Kuo.

Ryan Kuo is an artist and writer based in New York City. His work uses digital systems and sequences to invoke a person or people arguing. This is not to state an argument about a thing, but to be caught in a state of argument. His projects have been commissioned and shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), M+ (Hong Kong), Queens Museum (NYC), and TRANSFER (LA). He was a 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellow. He is not a programmer.

Those affiliated with Rutgers can watch Ryan Kuo’s lecture recording here.

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Kelly Walters | 2/27

Kelly Walters is an artist, designer, and founder of the multidisciplinary design studio Bright Polka Dot. Her ongoing design research interrogates identity formation and systems of value embedded in Black visual and material culture. Kelly has curated a number of exhibitions, including KindredOpen Dialogue: Artists + Designers of Afro-Caribbean Descent and Remix: Activating the Archive andreceived a Graham Foundation award for her exhibition With a Cast of Colored Stars in 2021. Kelly has written about Black American design histories and the impact of colonization on the construction of the Black image.

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Scott Reinhard | 2/13

A visualization of Starlink satellites by Scott Reinhard in The New York Times.

Scott Reinhard is a Brooklyn, New York and Sharon, Connecticut-based graphic designer and cartographer. He works as a Graphics Editor at The New York Times focusing on cartography and data visualization, and previously worked at the design studio 2×4 and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Scott holds a Master of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University.

Those affiliated with Rutgers can watch Scott Reinhard’s lecture recording here.

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Kit Son Lee | 2/6

Kit Son Lee’s avatar head floating beside a table labelled “WHO WOULD WIN … industrial machinery // a shoe”.

Kit Son Lee is a graphic designer, developer, and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Through a form-agnostic practice spanning web experiences, graphic systems, installation, print ephemera, and language (both natural and programming), they appropriate the methods of contemporary computation to instigate collaborative sabotages of their control structures. Kit is a co-founder of Codify Art, a collective dedicated to supporting queer and trans artists of color, and was the 2021–22 Visiting Fellow at the Ammerman Center for Arts & Technology. They have worked in educational, speaking, and/or design capacities with a variety of cultural institutions, including the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Casa del Lago UNAM, New Media Caucus, and PRINTED MATTER LA Art Book Fair, in addition to exhibiting in the US and abroad. Kit holds an MFA in Graphic Design from RISD and BAs in Visual art and Literary Arts from Brown University.

Those affiliated with Rutgers can watch Kit Son Lee’s lecture recording here.

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Alvaro Dominguez | 1/30

Alvaro Dominguez is an emotion, a feeling, a movement, your friend and your enemy’s friend, your sister’s husband, that person who can’t eat anything remotely spicy, and the culprit of the extinction of the dinosaurs. He’s the co-founder of the band Scared of Bunnies, with seven albums on Spotify! Seven! And zero Grammys. He is a contributing art director at The New York Times, holds a Red Cross first aid certificate, and is a green belt in taekwondo. He did a Time Magazine cover, and his father reacted by saying, “So what? Nobody knows that magazine.” He has honed his improv skills at Magnet Theater, UCB, and Brooklyn Comedy Collective. Plus, he’s read more than seventeen books in his lifetime.

Those affiliated with Rutgers can watch Alvaro Dominguez’s lecture recording here.