Chris Lange

VERMONT COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS (VCFA)

Lange is a graphic & web designer, digital artist, creative coder, creative worker, and ‘part-time’ professor focused on building community in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has 5 years of teaching experience at OCADU and George Brown College in graphic design, web design, interaction design, UI/UX, and any other buzzword you can think of. He also has almost 15 years of industry experience in visual communication in visual identity, custom typography, book, and web projects. He believes in unity, and co-operation instead of competition, and hyper-individualism. His graduate thesis studied the economic and political power structure behind the growth of monopsonies and monopolies. This has led to the realization that individual agency depends upon independent and community ownership models. He recently launched the Anti-Subscription Catalogue (www.a-s-c.org). The A·S·C project advocates for equitable public access to digital tools through open-source, co-operative, and collective ownership models using software that is free, open-source, and a one-time fee—instead of subscription-based. From educational access to digital literacy, Lange is looking to grow A·S·C locally at libraries in the form of workshops that promote a diversity of tools, software, websites, and approaches.

WHO IS SOMEONE YOU LOOK UP TO IN YOUR FIELD? EITHER TODAY OR HISTORICALLY?

Natalia Ilyin. Also if space allows: Vocations for Social Change, Lewis Hine, Berthold Brecht, Willem Sandberg, Ida Tarbell, Terry Gilliam, Jan Tschichold, Harry Braverman, Louis Riel, W.E.B. Dubois, Elizabeth Magie, bell hooks, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ramon Tejada.

DO YOU CURRENTLY, OR DO YOU PLAN TO, DESIGN FOR ANY CAUSES OR CHARITIES?

Nor co-op (www.nor.design) Canadian board member. Continue to work on publicly funded projects. A-S-C.org community-facing workshops. Recently launched https://pictongazette.ca/ — an independent news source and Canada’s oldest weekly newspaper.