Events

Salon Series 39: Call and Response: Histories of Designing Protest
with Ana Llorente, José Menendez
A panel of design history experts enhance Letterform Archive’s exhibition, Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest.
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Protesters through time have used typography to strike through myriad forms of oppression. Their urgent, often handmade signs, placards, and banners put bigots on notice that their hate has been marked for correction. Charting the histories of this material is also an artform itself. The speakers in this panel will share their research and curatorial practices on the history of protest movements across North America and the Caribbean.
Ana Llorente
Ana Llorente is a Cuban-Venezuelan designer and educator living and working in Ukiah, California, the land of the Pomo People. With over 20 years of combined experience in graphic design, experiential design, and education, Ana teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at California College of the Arts and Otis College of Art and Design. Ana’s studio practice focuses on collaborative experiences integrating learning and audience engagement, publication design, visual experiments using recycled and natural resources, and researching Cuban graphic design and history. Ana has successfully spearheaded student-to-student and professional educational exchange programs in Havana, Cuba; secured funding for lectures and workshops by Latin-American and Central-American designers; participated in book fair :ndex in Guadalajara, Mexico; and participated in the Zona Maco Art Fair in Mexico City, Mexico. Her work has been recognized by The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), The Society of Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), the American Association of Museums (AAM), How Magazine, Print Magazine, Graphis, Mohawk Papers, University College Designers Association (UCDA), and the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In her spare time, Ana enjoys the occasional ceramic course, learning how to grow food, and caring for a medley of domesticated and farm animals.
José Menendez
José R. Menéndez is a graphic designer and educator, with a background in marine science communication and landscape architecture. His multi-disciplinary practice, research, and teaching are intertwined as he investigates topics such as community engagement through health communication and social justice; expanding the canons of graphic design by highlighting Latin American and Caribbean practices; and designing spatial justice and ecological narratives in the landscape. José’s work examines the design practice as a platform for multilingual communication, dissemination, access, visibility, equity, and justice at multiple scales.
José is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University College of Art Media and Design, and a founding partner at Buena Gráfica Social Studio in Providence, RI.