Meet the Jurors for 365: AIGA Year in Design

Famed competition captures a 360 degree view of design’s brilliance over the last 365 days

New York, NY—AIGA, the professional association for design, is pleased to announce an esteemed jury of design professionals for the annual 365: AIGA Year in Design competition.

The competition celebrates designers, design teams, and their clients for effectively working together to design creative solutions for challenges presented by businesses and organizations during the calendar year 2022. This competition recognizes excellence and represents innovation across all categories of communication design, from print to web to service to spaces—both physical and virtual. 

The jurors for this year’s competition, chaired by Lucille Tenazas, are:

Lucille Tenazas (chair), Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design
Lucille Tenazas is an educator and graphic designer based in New York and San Francisco. She is the Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design in New York. Her design work is at the intersection of typography and linguistics, reflecting complex and poetic means of visual expression. Lucille was the national president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1996-1998 was awarded the AIGA Medal in 2013, for her lifetime contribution to design practice and outstanding leadership in design education. Originally from Manila, the Philippines, she has taught and practiced in the United States since 1979, a trajectory that included living in San Francisco, Rome, Italy and New York. The collective experience of living in the west and east coasts of the United States and studying at Cranbrook Academy of Art where she received her MFA in Design has had a profound effect on her work. Lucille is an authority in the evolving state of design education and has conducted workshops throughout the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Keetra Dean Dixon, Experiential Designer, Keetra Dean Dixon
Keetra Dean Dixon is a designer whose work inhabits exploratory terrain, leveraging emergent technologies and process-focused making. She’s US based, dividing her time between the East Coast and rural Alaska. Her work and research in areas of typography, object based learning, and experiential design have earned her a professorship with RISD, a US Presidential Award, a place in the permanent design collection at SFMOMA, and an ADC Young Gun Award. She's an internationally featured speaker and has spoken at FITC, OFFF, the Type Directors Club and AIGA National Design Conferences to name a few. She's designed and directed installations at the Venice Architecture Biennale, her objects are carried by the Tate, and she’s shown at the Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, the National Design Museum and the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC.

Natalia Ilyin, Professor of Design, Design Histories, and Criticism, Cornish College of the Arts    
Natalia Ilyin is a teacher and writer. She teaches studios in design, complex systems, semiotics, and writing, and lectures about the stories of design, and about the ways in which design enhances or degrades human experience. She is Professor of Design, Design History, and Criticism at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and founding faculty and advisor for the MFA in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts.     

Lynn Kiang, Partner, Dome and Director, MPS Communication Design, Parsons School of Design
Lynn Kiang is co-founder of Dome, a multi-disciplinary design studio in experience design, graphic design and built environments based in Brooklyn. She previously led teams in experience design at SYPartners, collaborating with strategists and company leaders in transforming their brand. She was a Senior Designer at Local Projects, overseeing graphic, interaction, and media design for museums and cultural institutions. Her work has received numerous awards and recognition from Fast Company, Core77, Communications Arts, D&AD, Print Magazine, Type Directors Club, SEGD, ASLA, Art Directors Club, and AIGA. As an educator, Lynn is Director of the MPS Communication Design program and Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design. She has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the School of Visual Arts as adjunct faculty. She received her MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design, Certificate of Collegiate Teaching from Brown University, and BS in Psychology from UCLA.

Abbott Miller, Partner, Pentagram
Abbott Miller is a multidisciplinary designer and writer whose work spans brand identity, environmental graphics, exhibitions, books and digital media. He has collaborated with many cultural institutions, museums, architects, and creative partners in fashion, music, dance, theater and architecture. His clients include the Rolling Stones, the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Express, Ritz-Carlton, the Kennedy Center, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. His work is in several museum collections and he is a recipient of the AIGA Medal, the highest honor in the arena of graphic design.

Wael Morcos, Partner, Morcos Key
Wael Morcos is a graphic designer and type designer from Beirut, Lebanon and a partner at the New York based design studio Morcos Key. Upon receiving his BA in Graphic Design from Notre Dame University (Lebanon), he spent three years developing identities and Arabic-Latin bilingual typefaces, in addition to working in print and exhibition design. Wael received his MFA from RISD in 2013, after which he moved to New York and worked with several studios in the city before founding Morcos Key. Wael has been featured in Print Magazine’s 15 under 30, was named a Young Gun by the Art Directors Club and an Ascender by the Type Directors Club.  

         
"In my role as Chair of the jury for this year’s 365: AIGA Year in Design competition, I regard the carefully chosen projects as a barometer of the shifting standards of design excellence. It's a great experience to review the work that is currently being produced and engage in a critical conversation with other jurors. Design is such a moving target with so many permutations, and as an educator, it helps to gain a holistic view of design practices in a professional context. It goes without saying that it is a privilege to have a front row seat into the unique and provocative voices of our discipline," said Lucille Tenazas, 365: AIGA Year in Design Chair.

Competitions are instrumental in identifying emerging and hidden talent within the design community, recognizing effective visual design solutions in the marketplace, and communicating the added value of design to adjacent industries. Work selected by jurors will chronicle the contributions of design and designers to business value and visual culture. Winners will be announced later this year.

Learn more about 365: AIGA Year in Design competition.