Design Symposium Lecture Series
For 40 years, the KU Design Symposium Lecture Series (formerly Hallmark Symposium) has enriched educational experiences by introducing KU students to designers and artists working in a wide range of disciplines and professional fields.
Spring 2024 Schedule
Lectures begin at 6:00pm and are free and open to the public in Budig Hall, 130
February 1 | Angela Sung
Angela Sung is a plein-air painter and animation development artist for film and television. Combining traditional painting techniques and digital design, Sung has worked on projects for Disney, DreamWorks, Netflix, Warner Brothers, and other studios. Credits include Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Kung Fu Cooking Girls, Legend of Korra, Voltron, and the 2022 animated feature The Bad Guys.
February 15 | Spandita Malik
Spandita Malik is a visual artist from India. Her work is concerned with the current global socio-political state of affairs with an emphasis on women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik specializes in process based work in photography, recently with photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India.
February 29 | Polymode Studio
Polymode is a bi-coastal, queer, and minority-owned graphic design studio leading the edge of design with thought-provoking work for clients across the cultural sphere. The studio's specialties include books, curation, education, exhibition, identities, interfaces, publications, visual design, websites, workshops, and writing. Clients include the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, David Kordansky Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, Phaidon Press, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.
March 7 | Harlan Bozeman
Harlan Bozeman is a lens-based artist whose research-driven practice has focused on confronting the erasure of Black culture and its histories, and investigating the legacies of slavery and its aftermath in the American South. His previous work explored the Gullah Sea Islands communities, specifically Wadmalaw Island where his family is from, and the narratives that serve to prolong their cultural significance. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, British Journal of Photography, Der Grief, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
March 21| Frank Norton
Frank Norton is a graphic artist specializing in branding and illustration. Norton has built a reputation for creating provocative brands and telling stories through expressive illustration. He has worked as an art director for Boulevard Brewing Co, a design professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, and is currently dedicated to running his own full-time creative studio.
April 4 | Alan Tipp
Alan Tipp, a KU Industrial Design graduate, has developed products for some of the country’s best-known brands and contributed to numerous US and Foreign patents. Just five years after graduating from KU in 2000, Tipp was named director of Performance Eyewear at Under Armour where he went on to be recognized on all of the company’s design and utility patents, including the tool-free football visor clip used in the NFL. Tipp now maintains an independent studio and consultancy based in Omaha.
April 18 | Travis Millard
Travis Millard is an artist, illustrator, and art director who brings the intimacy of one artist’s hand to work spanning media and scale. In over two decades since graduating from the KU Illustration program, Millard’s work has appeared in galleries, magazines, brand campaigns, video games, and on the sides of buildings. His illustrations have been featured in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Juxtapose, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Thrasher. He has developed products and collections with Burton Snowboards, The Hundreds, Lakai, The Quiet Life, Vans, and Volcom. Other clients include Disney, Nickelodeon, and the filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. His work has appeared in exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, and Tokyo.