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 Kindred, Open 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.
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.
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.
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.
Isometric Studio unites graphic design and architecture to create empowering visual identities and spatial experiences.
“Based in New York City, we collaborate with leading cultural institutions, universities, tech companies, and nonprofits to reinvent the way they present themselves visually and strategically. We express the missions of these organizations through visual identities, exhibitions, websites, and signage programs that convey intellectual rigor, aesthetic sophistication, and memorable storytelling. We believe in design that transcends existing expectations by challenging cliches and stereotypes in visual culture.
In collaboration with our clients, we shape narratives and spaces of belonging. Through design, we advance an ethos of inclusion, equity, and justice, centering the lived experiences of marginalized people. Our projects often address complex social issues, amplifying activism on gender equity, climate change, racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and immigrant rights. Our more well-known clients include the USAID, Google, Museum of the City of New York, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Center for Reproductive Rights. We have also collaborated with 15+ departments and offices at Princeton University.”
