Audrey G. Bennett is an interdisciplinary designer whose scholarly work centers on design studies at the intersection of theoretical research and the critical and creative practices of thinking, making, and writing. She holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University’s School of Art and a BA in Studio Art from Dartmouth College.
Bennett has authored over 93 publications. Her recent monograph, Design: A Quick Immersion, redefines design as a self-organizing, cultural system mediated by power, involving people with practices situated in places that generate products—tangible and intangible outcomes—that have the potential to fulfill purposes in analog and digital places. She notes that people set design in motion through gathering and deploying intellectual, technological, environmental, and financial resources for the overarching purposes of capitalism, socio-ecology, and self- or collective expression.
Bennett's earlier book, Engendering Interaction with Images (Intellect/Chicago University Press, 2012), explores the design of multimodal images whose visual and verbal language facilitate or evoke multisensory interaction with lay people to enable cross-cultural resonance and yield cognitive and behavioral changes. Her groundbreaking edited collection, Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), was among the first publications in the early twenty-first century to advocate for theoretical research in graphic design.
Bennett is the co-creator and co-principal investigator of the award-winning Culturally Situated Design Tools—Cornrow Curves and Quilting. These digital interfaces facilitate underrepresented youth interacting with the heritage algorithms embedded in cornrow braiding and quilting to glean computational thinking knowledge.
Bennett is an AIGA Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary medalist (2022), one of the highest honors in graphic design; an inaugural University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor (2019, University of Michigan); an Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Scholar (2015, University of Pretoria, South Africa); and a College Art Association Professional Development Fellow (1996). Her courses include Typography, Cross-Cultural Graphics, Methods of Inquiry, Publication Design, and Research Methods.
Contact: agbennet at umich dot edu