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LAURIE CHURCHMAN
DESIGNLORE
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Laurie Churchman is the principal of Designlore, a place for thinking, making and writing about design. She is also Assistant Professor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design, at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to founding Designlore, she garnered over 20 years of branding and corporate design experience directing projects for clients including IBM, Goldman Sachs, Museum of American Folk Art and First Union. Now at Designlore, her interests center around non-profit and cultural projects and her research looks at the intersection of creativity, typography and technology. She is also committed to partnering with her students and the community to offer solutions through design. Churchman's work has been recognized by Communication Arts, Creativity, HOW, Print and PDN: Nikon, among others. She is a past board member of World Studio Foundation, AIGA/NY and AIGA/Raleigh. Currently she serves on AIGA's National Board of Directors and chairs the Steering Committee for the Design Education Community of Interest.
Was graphic design your first career path?
Art education was my first college major. I quickly dropped it for visual communications, once I learned of it during freshman year. There was no looking back from there. I love design and have been practicing ever since. So, it's somehow ironic that I now find myself back in education, teaching design. I love teaching, too.
What talents do you wish you possessed?
Two things: I wish I could play harmonica, and I wish I had better aptitude for the sciences. After a series of lessons on the harmonica, I had to admit to myself that I would never, ever be good. And with the sciences, there are so many interesting possibilities and endless potential, yet just getting beyond the basics I find challenging.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
Anything around me can spark an idea when I allow my senses to roam. More specifically, though, I'll often do a brain dump in which I start listing thoughts and words associated with the problem I'm trying to solve. Then, I make a second list with everything that is the opposite of the problem. After that, I just keep writing until I've emptied out. Somehow, that either generates something new or clears my head enough to move on. Or I go swimming.
Should graphic design be an instrument for positive social change?
Designers have the ability to effect change in ways big and small, so, to me, it is, or should be, part of everyone's practice. I design for foundations and organizations with causes that are near and dear to me personally. But equally important, I think, is the civic engagement work that I do with my students. I teach a course called "Practicum" in which we solve design problems for entities that can't otherwise afford design services. Our projects have ranged from environmental signage at an elementary school and information graphics for the Family Court of Philadelphia to a public installation that chronicles the displacement of a community and provides a space for old and new neighbors to interact. In each of these projects, the students work with community groups, government agencies and others to realize the power that design can have to improve lives.
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