Spring 2024 Design Symposium Lecture Series schedule

LAWRENCE – The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design will welcome award-winning animation development artist Angela Sung on Feb. 1 as the first speaker of the spring KU Design Symposium Lecture Series.

Now in its 40th year, the design lecture series (formerly Hallmark Symposium) has introduced KU students and the local community to top designers and artists working in a wide range of disciplines and professional fields. See a complete list of past lecturers at the Design Symposium Speaker Archive.  

Spring 2024 lectures begin at 6 p.m. in 130 Budig Hall on the KU Lawrence campus. Events are free and open to the public.

Angela Sung 

Feb. 1 

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.”

Spandita Malik  

Feb. 15 

Spandita Malik is a visual artist from India. Her work is concerned with the current global sociopolitical 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.

Polymode Studio 

Feb. 29 

Polymode is a bicoastal, 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.

Harlan Bozeman 

March 7 

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.

TBA

March 21

Alan Tipp  

April 4 

Alan Tipp, a KU industrial design graduate, has developed products for some of the world’s best-known brands and contributed to numerous U.S. 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, Nebraska. 

Travis Millard 

April 18 

Travis Millard is an artist, illustrator and art director who brings the intimacy of one artist’s hand to work spanning media and scale. Since graduating from the KU illustration program in 1998, Millard’s work has appeared around the world in gallery exhibitions, magazines, brand campaigns, video games and on the sides of buildings. He has developed products, collections and campaigns with brands such as Burton Snowboards, The Hundreds, Lakai, The Quiet Life, Vans and Volcom. Other clients include Disney, Nickelodeon and the filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. His illustrations have been featured in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Juxtapose, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and Thrasher. See some of Millard’s most recent drawings on Instagram.