News

Three MIAD Communication Design students received 60th anniversary American Graphic Design Awards from Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) magazine. The students were selected from over 8,000 entries, and judged alongside professional design work. Fewer than 10% of entrants received an award.

Interior Architecture and Design (IAD) seniors from MIAD were taken to new heights on November 13 when they toured the construction site of The Couture, a 44-story skyscraper under construction that will be Milwaukee’s tallest residential and mixed-use building. The tour was part of a series of tours their senior thesis “Building Systems” class is taking with instructor Dan Kalkman, AIA.

The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) selected the design of MIAD alum Debbie Sajnani ’16 (Communication Design) for its 2023 annual ornament. The ornaments are recreated each year by artisans using a reserve painting technique, according to MAM.

For decades, Milwaukee has hosted an annual Holiday Lights Festival. To commemorate the festival’s 25th anniversary, Milwaukee Downtown will also host the new Ornament Trail this year. Five Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) alumni and one instructor, who teamed up with both students and alumni, produced giant ornaments for the event.

Sarah Eichhorn, Visiting Instructor of Fashion and Apparel Design, received the October 2023 MIAD Values Recognition Award at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). Eichhorn’s nominations speak to her Kindness, Inclusiveness, Innovation and support of MIAD’s Community.

Building community and collaboration through art: this is how two faculty members at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) spent their summer. Kim Miller, Professor and Chair of Fine Arts + New Studio Practice, and Peter Barrickman, Associate Professor in Fine Arts, completed a residency in Concepción, Chile in July.

As a high school student in Alabama, Ella Parris ’25 (Illustration – Animation Track) got involved with the National Association of Resource Conservation & Development Councils (NARCDC). Now, the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) junior is illustrating a series of children’s books for the organization to help promote conservation to kids.

Marie Larson, Director of Academic Affairs, received the September 2023 MIAD Values Recognition Award at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). Larson’s nominations detail her embodiment of MIAD’s Core Values of Courage, Integrity, Kindness and Inclusion.

Three MIAD alums – Andrea Cabrera Manuel ’23, Seth Ter Haar ’23 and Brandom Terres-Sanchez ’23 – are among the nine artists selected from 117 applicants for the Fall 2023 gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix accelerator. All three were MIAD Fine Art / New Studio Practice majors.

Plexuss, a student opportunity network company in the higher education community, interviewed Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) President Jeffrey Morin for their Plexuss Presidential Podcast series.

Jeffrey Morin, president of the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), was selected to serve on the Governor’s Task Force on Workforce and Artificial Intelligence. Consisting of 30 industry experts, the committee aims to identify policies and investments that will advance Wisconsin workers, employers and job seekers.

Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) students in Visiting Instructor of Fashion and Apparel Design Sarah Eichhorn’s First-Year Experience class ventured outside of the classroom to hear from local textile artist and community educator Vanessa Devaki Andrew.

What do you get when you combine eight Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) alumni with a visionary team of other artists and designers and an imaginative, fantastical premise? An immersive art experience in the form of Deep Lake Future, headed up by Milwaukee-based multimedia studio FuzzPop Workshop and located inside Var Gallery 5th St. until December, 2023.

Hot pink cleats, intramural sports and apparel design at Nike: this was summer 2023 for Emma May Travitz ’24, a Product Design senior at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). Travitz spent the summer interning at Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon on their Global Apparel and Materials team.

When Andy Rash, associate professor of illustration at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), viewed the 2017 total solar eclipse with his son, he did not set out to write a book about the experience. But for years afterward, his family could not stop talking about the eclipse. Rash channeled that excitement into his newest picture book, “Eclipse.”

For Benjamin Cole ’24 (Product Design), sports are an integral part of life. The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) senior started his fall semester fresh from an internship with Under Armour as part of their innovation team focusing on footwear design.

Students in Professor Leslie Fedorchuk’s service learning class “We Are Water” visited one of Milwaukee’s most famous public infrastructure sites at the end of September. The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) juniors took a rainy field trip to Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility to learn about wastewater treatment and the environmental impact of water reclamation.

After nearly 25 years in the business, Jennifer Hissa ’96 (Interior Architecture and Design) realized her longtime dream and opened Greater Chicago Kitchen and Bath, her own showroom located near Chicago. The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) alum recently celebrated five years in business after a major renovation project.

Working at the periphery of student life, staff members hold technical and administrative positions that allow for the smooth operation of the college’s day-to-day and long-term activities. When they’ve clocked out of the MIAD building, they’re home, in the studio, outside in nature– and exercising their own creative muscles and sustaining personal arts practices. “After Hours,” the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) Gallery at the Ave’s latest exhibition is the first of its kind for the college where staff talents are in the limelight.

During the fall 2023 semester, the Lubar Emerging Technology Center at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) hosts “Technique of the Week” demonstrations for students, faculty and staff. MIAD community members are invited to attend presentations on everything from 3D scanning objects to fermentation to Minecraft. Most recently, attendees played pinball on a handmade virtual pinball machine.

Four students were honored at the inaugural Latine Student Exhibition, on view at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) until October 13, 2023. Coordinated by rhi anderson-martinez, executive director of equity and inclusion at MIAD, the exhibition highlights and celebrates the art and design skills of MIAD’s Latine students during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Brad Anthony Bernard, professor of fine art at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), will participate in a panel discussion about Frederick Law Olmsted at the 2023 annual conference of the Olmsted Network in Milwaukee. An accomplished muralist, Bernard designed a mural depicting Olmsted which will be displayed at a public mural and sculpture garden in Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) welcomes Anna Hillary as the new full-time Assistant Professor of Writing and Humanities following a national search.

For this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month, Whitney Salgado ’15 (Illustration) produced a variety of surface designs for Kohl’s textiles. The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) alum, who also earned a minor in Communication Design, works as a freelance digital painter and illustrator.

John Caruso, professor of product design at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), was honored earlier this year for his achievements in industrial design and was inducted into the Academy of Fellows.