Speaking.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Navigating a Nonlinear Career
in Design

What does a career in design really look like—and where might it take you?

Work in Progress traces the evolution of a design career from early professional practice and agency life through mid-career transitions, graduate study, an MFA, teaching, and an expanding practice in research, writing, and design history. Through selected projects, pivotal moments, unexpected turns, successes, failures, and lessons learned along the way, the lecture gives students a candid look at how a creative career can grow, shift, and continually reinvent itself.

Rather than presenting a design career as a carefully mapped trajectory, Work in Progress embraces the detours. It explores changing direction, returning to school mid-career, moving from professional practice into academia, and discovering how teaching, research, writing, collecting, and personal interests can open entirely new creative possibilities.

Ultimately, the lecture encourages students to think beyond the pressure of having their careers figured out before they begin. There is no single path to becoming—or remaining—a designer. Interests change, opportunities emerge in unexpected places, and new passions can reshape the work you make and the questions you ask. A career in design, like design itself, is always a work in progress.