Congratulations to Nicolette Francis, class of 2024, who is being awarded the Claudia Atencia Linares (’01) Alumni Prize for her distinguished work and contribution to the MFA Design program.

Have a look at her project “Iya,” which she describes as a typeface that expresses the ocean’s anger toward the transatlantic slave trade, in which 1.8 million enslaved people died. Iya, meaning mother in many West African countries, is a typographic love letter to all the enslaved women who never had the chance to be mothers.