attention: GD rising juniors + seniors

Course Registration is upon us (registration begins on April 28th), so we will have a drop-in Advising Check-in with snacks 🍪🍪🍪. We will be here to answer any questions about the curriculum, courses, and your plan for completing your degree on time. You can review our course offerings (including electives) on Workday. Registration details have been sent to your email from the Registrar. Please review them carefully.

¹For Reference Only
Sol Koffler Gallery at CIT
exhibit runs April 4-20

Graphic designers spend hours designing books, posters, websites, and experimental projects—only to wonder: What happens once they’re out in the world? Are they merely skimmed, briefly glanced at, or ever truly engaged with? Do they exist beyond the scroll of the Instagram feed? Are they doomed to simply be bookmarked, archived, and repurposed as reference material for yet another design destined for the same fate?

¹For Reference Only– a curation of 49 works from current and previous students of the RISD Graphic Design Graduate Program @risd_gdmfa
http://mfabiennial2025.risd.gd

📢The Gonda Fund is an award that provides funding for student work centered on social justice issues. The award is named after Tomás Gonda, who left money to the department in 1991 when he passed away. This year, the funds are available to all GD students (grads + undergrads) working on projects with social justice themes within any current GD studio class (including Degree Projects, MFA thesis projects, ISPs and CSPs).

Awards are in the $500–800 range, depending on the number of applicants. If more than 15 qualified applications are received, students will be prioritized according to the time remaining in our program (i.e., seniors/thesis students will be funded first, and then juniors/pre-thesis, and then sophomores/first-year students).

You may apply for this year's funding immediately. To apply, please gather:

1. a written statement about how/why the project falls under the umbrella of social justice and why this is important to you (1–2 paragraphs or more).
2. a written project description (1–2 paragraphs or more).
3. Up to 5 images of the work submitted (work-in-progress, process, renderings, proposal, research, etc.) from any 2024–25 GD class.

Submit your application here by March 31.

Jon Key is a designer, artist, and writer known for his work exploring identity, race, gender, and queerness. He is a co-founder with Wael Marcos, of the Brooklyn-based design studio Morcos Key that has collaborated with major brands and publications, including HBO, Nickelodeon, The Public Theatre and the Whitney Museum. Key is also a co-founder of Codify Art, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to supporting work by artists of color, particularly women, queer, and trans artists of color.
Read more here.

RISD UNBOUND is an event celebrating artists’ books, zines, and experimental printed matter created by RISD students and community, local artists and designers, as well as publishers, artists, designers, and print enthusiasts from across the region. Through exhibits and sales, UNBOUND seeks to inspire conversations around cultural publishing in the Providence community. RISD UNBOUND is free and open to the public!

More details here.

Alicia Márquez is a Chicago-based letter artist specializing in calligraphy and stone letter carving. Her artistic approach emphasizes the expressive potential of letters, utilizing light, reflections, shadows, and innovative carving techniques to convey emotion and meaning. Her work has been featured in publications such as 'Letter Arts Review' and 'Forum' magazines, and exhibited at institutions including the Newberry Library and the Museum of Design in Chicago.

Talk: 12pm Fri Mar 21

Creative Web Coding Workshop 12-5pm Sat Mar 22
Learn the radically basic web coding that is creative and flexible that lets you build unexpected layouts and typographic structures. By combining unique yet simple components, the web space can quickly bring complexity and depth. First-time coders are welcome (no coding experience needed).

This workshop is open to all students but is limited to 25 participants. Sign-up will be required (check your email soon for this sign-up link).

Please Save the Date! More information to come:

→Talk + Workshop: MASATO NAKADA/Happening Studio
Friday, March 21, 12:00pm
Saturday, March 22, 12–5pm Creative Web Coding Workshop
Open to all students, sign up will be required.

→Talk + Book Signing: JON KEY
Black, Queer & Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists and Trailblazers
Saturday, April 5, 3pm

→Talk: ALICIA MÁRQUEZ
Friday, April 25, 12pm

RISD GD is currently conducting a search for a full-time faculty member, and the Search Committee has selected three finalists. Each finalist will deliver a talk that is open to the entire RISD GD community (as well as participate in interviews, a teaching demo, and other activities). The Search Committee will take your feedback into consideration in their decision-making, so attendance at these talks is highly encouraged!

RISD GD is currently conducting a search for a full-time faculty member, and the Search Committee has selected three finalists. Each finalist will deliver a talk that is open to the entire RISD GD community (as well as participate in interviews, a teaching demo, and other activities). The Search Committee will take your feedback into consideration in their decision-making, so attendance at these talks is highly encouraged!

RISD GD is currently conducting a search for a full-time faculty member, and the Search Committee has selected three finalists. Each finalist will deliver a talk that is open to the entire RISD GD community (as well as participate in interviews, a teaching demo, and other activities). The Search Committee will take your feedback into consideration in their decision-making, so attendance at these talks is highly encouraged!

We invite you to join us as we celebrate Dr. Cheryl D. Miller 71*/HD 22 and her new book, HERE: Where the Black Designers Are. Dr. Miller will read passages from her book and join a moderated discussion with RISD Associate Professor Jess Brown MID 09. Following the discussion, Dr. Miller will sign books and special edition prints designed by Jacques Bidon.

6:30pm talk and moderated discussion / 7:30pm book and print signing and reception

Planning for Degree Project 📕 is about to start. If you're doing DP this spring 💐, please join us for a kick-off discussion 📽️ about the upcoming semester. We will have a short information session to explain the process this year, attendance is required; please let us know if you can't make it.

Check out our lineup of RISD GD electives slated for this fall: 12 electives and 5 workshops. These are spread out throughout the week and will accommodate many different kinds of schedules, from sophomores to degree project to thesis.

Browse the full list

Please join us to Launch Amalgam #5

The fifth installment of Amalgam delves into the politics of alienation, exploring how these dynamics act as conduits for violence in its many forms.

The launch, moderated by Katherine Cooper, will feature a brief note by the editor and designer, Pouya Ahmadi, followed by readings from the issue and a conversation between the editor and contributors, Zoe Samudzi, Saman Sajasi, Stephanie Choi, and German Pallares Avita.