Our latest MFAD guest lecturer was Maya Kopytman, an incredibly well-rounded award-winning designer who is currently a partner at C&G Partners. Her work specializes in branding, interactive technologies, and websites, and she has worked with highly renowned institutions in the cultural sector such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, MoMA, Rockefeller University, to name only a few.

She presented a wide breadth of identity and branding projects within the scientific discipline, which gave us an important sense of how critical communications design is in seemingly removed fields. The brands she develops are timeless, dynamic, capable of evolving, and people-centric: made to capture the essence of those who are at the very core of the institutions that she works with.

The question of how design can serve to elevate the complex histories of long-standing institutions looking to remain current is one that Maya continues to dedicate her practice to. She demonstrated this by taking us through a comprehensive view across projects that, though monumental, seem undoubtedly approached with keen intuition and grace.

It is always refreshing to peek into the world of design serving industries outside of design, and continue to understand the ways in which visual communication is used as a tool to make a deep impact across other fields of knowledge. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet someone who has worked hard to place herself at the forefront of design innovation in culture. Thank you, Maya!