Masters Workshop in Italy / Faculty

Faculty

Steven Heller is the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program and co-founder of the MFA in Design Criticism and MFA in Interaction Design programs at the School of Visual Arts. For 33 years, he was an art director at The New York Times (28 of them as senior art director for the NY Times Book Review). He currently writes the Visuals column for the Book Review. He is editor of AIGA VOICE: Online Journal of Design and contributing editor to Print, EYE, Baseline, and ID magazines. He contributes to Design Observer and writes the DAILY HELLER blog for Print Magazine. His podcasts on design history are available at http://design.sva.edu/site/series/show/2. He is the author of over 120 books on design and popular culture, including Design Literacy, Paul Rand, Anatomy of Design, Graphic Style, Stylepedia, The Design Entrepreneur, and most recently Iron Fists: Branding the Twentieth Century Totalitarian State. He is the recipient of the 1999 AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement. hellerbooks.com.

Lita Talarico is the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Design as Author program at the School of Visual Arts. She has spent her career involved with art, architecture, and design, and has held leadership positions with three notable institutions of higher education whose primary focus are those fields—The Cooper Union, Purchase College, and the School of Visual Arts. She has played significant administrative and organizational roles in prestigious conferences, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize, numerous publishing and competition ventures, and the selection of architects and designers for commissions. She has been a consultant to the U.S. General Services Administration and American Express Company, and a founding associate at Bill Lacy Design. She was the founding managing editor and project director for American Illustration and Photography. In 2008, she was a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome. She is co-author of Design Career: Practical Knowledge for Beginning Illustrators and Designers, The Design Entrepreneur, and the forthcoming books Design School Confidential, Design Schools North America, and 100 Essentials for the Graphic Design Student. design.sva.edu/sva_de/

Louise Fili, the founder of Louise Fili Ltd, specializes in logo, package, restaurant, type, book, and book jacket design. A senior designer for Herb Lubalin from 1976-1978, she was also art director of Pantheon Books for more than ten years, where she designed over 2,000 book jackets. She currently works for major food companies and restaurants in the United States. She has received awards from every major design competition, including gold and silver medals from the Society of Illustrators and the New York Art Directors Club, the Premio Grafico from the Bologna Book Fair, and three James Beard award nominations. Fili has taught and lectured on design and typography and her work is in the permanenet collection of the Library of Congress, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. She was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts design grant to study the work of W.A. Dwiggins, and is co-author of Italian Art Deco, Dutch Moderne, British Modern, Deco Type, German Modern, Design Connoisseur, Deco España, Typology, and Euro Deco. Her most recent book is Italianissimo. Fili was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame in 2006. louisefili.com

Cristina Chiappini, a graphic and new media designer, splits her time between Rome and Treviso. She specializes in corporate identity and web design for furniture companies, communication for events, and humanitarian campaigns. Her clients include La Triennale di Milano, RAI International, Pianca design living, Texao, Nice, MN Metropolitana di Napoli, Marithé + François Girbaud, and Aidos. She is a member of the Italian Council of Design, Ministry of Culture and serves as vice president, Italian Association of Graphic Design. She teaches graphic design and web design at the Sapienza, University of Rome and IUAV University of Venice and University of the Republic of San Marino. She also conducts workshops on basic interactive design at the IUAV Venice Faculty of Design and Art. Her projects have been exhibited at La Triennale di Milano, The New Italian Design 2007, and the Canton Trade Fair in Canton, China 2006. cristinachiappini.com

Omar Vulpinari, who lives in Treviso, has been creative director of the Visual Communication Department at Fabrica, the Benetton communications center founded by Luciano Benetton and Oliviero Toscani, since 1998. Here he has directed projects for the United Nations, International Council of Nurses, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Witness, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, United Colors of Benetton, Coca-Cola, Nikon, Fuji, ArteFiera Bologna, Tim Telecomunicazioni, Istituto Luce, Alessi, Porsche, Piaggio, Vespa, The New Yorker magazine, Domus, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Internazionale, Edizioni San Paolo, Electa, Mondadori, Mediaset, Fox International, Regione Veneto, and World Public Relations Festival. Fabrica’s visual communication work under his direction has been featured by major international press and dedicated exhibitions at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht (1998), the National Museum of Arts and Traditions in Rome (1999), the Vivid Gallery in Rotterdam (2002), the Ginza Graphic Gallery in Tokyo (2003), the DDD Gallery in Osaka (2003), the ZeroOne Design Center in Seoul (2005). In 2006, it was featured in the exhibition “Fabrica: Les Yeux Ouverts” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He teaches Fundamentals of Two-Dimensional Design at the University of the Republic of San Marino and IUAV University of Venice, where in 2006 he was also curator of the conference series “Grafica e Responsabilità Sociale.” omarvulpinari.com

Giorgio Camuffo, along with Sebastiano Girardi and Massimo De Luca, founded Studio Camuffo in 1990, a design studio specializing in corporate image, sign systems, art publications and catalogues, architectural graphics, exhibition design, interior design, and cultural initiatives. Among its clients are some of the leading Italian institutions and companies today: Pitti Immagine, Benetton, Palazzo Grassi, Carraro, Gruppo Coin, Fabrica, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Musei Civici Veneziani, Triennale di Milano, IUAV University of Venice, Elemond, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Colosseo, Costa Crociere, Gas Jeans, Giorgio Armani, Teatro La Scala, and Associazione Industriali. The Studio Camuffo team is dedicated to creating and organizing cultural events, exhibitions, workshops, and conferences presented in some of the most important Italian cultural institutions today such as Fabrica, the Group Benetton’s research center for visual communications. The team is also dedicated to the editorial and graphic production of publications and catalogues on visual communications, including the magazine Sugo.Scritture Indecise and the book dedicated to Italian graphic design Red, Wine and Green. Forthcoming is the magazine Venice is Not Sinking. Giorgio Camuffo teaches visual design and planning at the claDIS in industrial design at the IUAV University of Venice. The works produced by Studio Camuffo have been presented in many prominent international museums and galleries.

James Clough has lived and worked in Milan as typographer, designer and calligrapher for more than 30 years. Since 1990, he is a teacher of the theory and history of typography and visual communication at various institutions, including the Milan Polytechnic University and the ISIA of Urbino.

Carlo Branzaglia teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, where he is coordinator of Design. He is the author and co-author of several books, including Immaginari Del Consumo Giovanile, Comunicare Con Le Immagini, Marginali, VideoLogo, and VideoSign. He is the organizer of design events, including Imagine iT, (together with Simone Wolf, 2007 and 2008). He is the editor in chief of the quarterly graphic design magazine Artlab, the coordinator of Visual Design selection in ADI Design Index, and serves as National Director of EIDD Design for All Europe board.