Graphic Design Alumnx Talk

Join the MFA in Graphic Design program for our upcoming Alumnx Talk featuring Heather Snyder Quinn (GD ’18), Ryan Slone (GD ’21) and Olivia Schneider (GD ’21).

Each Alumnx will share their current work and reflect on both their time at VCFA and how their experience in the program helped shape their current creative pursuits. We will conclude with Q+A and informal conversation with all attendees.

The session is open to the broader VCFA Graphic Design program including current students, faculty, and alumnx and will offer an opportunity to get to reconnect with our vibrant community.

Panelists include:
Heather Snyder Quinn (GD ‘18): heathersnyderquinn.com
Ryan Slone (GD ‘21): https://ryanslonedesign.com
Olivia Schneider (GD ‘21): https://oliviaschneider.xyz/

Panelists Bios:

Heather Synder Quinn: (GD ’18)
Heather is usually where she “isn’t supposed to be.” You will find her playing in unexpected places, physical or virtual, and collaborating with people from an array of backgrounds. Her work uses design fiction to empower communities to imagine possible futures and understand technology’s impact on human freedoms. The World Economic Forum, MIT Press, Yale Law School, The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, and NASA have recognized her work. Currently, she is editing Technologies of Deception, a publication bringing together art, design, technology, ethics, futurism, and policymaking. Heather is an Assistant Professor of Design Futures at Washington University and a mother of two daughters.

Ryan Slone (GD ’21):
Ryan Slone (he/him) is a posterist, designer, educator, and posterist whose work explores the intersection of design and activism through social-advocacy poster design, speculative processes, and constraint-led provocations. As a relational pedagogue, he empowers students to become citizen designers, collaborators, and leaders who practice inclusive design to ensure an equitable future for all. He is currently co-founder and vice-president of the inaugural United States International Poster Biennial.

Ryan is currently an assistant professor of graphic design in the School of Art at the University of Arkansas, where he also serves as the undergraduate coordinator in the graphic design program. Prior to joining the University of Arkansas, Ryan served for over a decade as an art director for DOXA in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His previous work experience included positions at Unboundary in Atlanta, Georgia, and Pentagram in New York City alongside Michael Bierut, with clients such as The New York Times and Yale School of Architecture. He earned an M.F.A. in graphic design from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, Vermont, a graduate certificate in design from the Miami Ad School in Atlanta, Georgia, and a B.F.A. in graphic design at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Olivia Schneider: (GD ’21):
Olivia Schneider is a graphic designer and a writer who finds the most joyful delight in unraveling a nice, complicated knot (metaphor, but also in real life). Her personal work has a speculative approach that draws on materiality, expeditionary learning, film, technology, literature and community and her favorite mediums at the moment are textile, collage, & screenprinting.

She’s also a graphic designer at Driven Studio in Burlington, VT creating work for mostly Vermont-based brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Burton Snowboards, Cabot Creamery, & Seventh Generation