A view of the exhibition “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision,” co-curated by Ellen Lupton and designed by Wendy Evans Joseph and Studio Joseph for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. Photo by Thomas Loof.
Ellen Lupton, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), is a designer, writer and educator. Lupton teaches in the Graphic Design Master of Fine Arts program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland. She is also an American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medalist.
Lupton will present a lecture at 4 p.m. Friday, April 4, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the spring lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and in partnership with the School of Art in Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
In her lecture, “Visual Storytelling and Sensory Design,” Lupton will present principles of visual storytelling and sensory design. In her work as a designer, writer and curator, Lupton explores narrative techniques across media, including print, exhibitions and video.
Storytelling propels action and movement through time and space. Sensory design combines sound, touch, smell and taste to enliven the path through an exhibition or retail environment. The narrative arc and the hero’s journey are classic tools for understanding and creating graphic images, user journeys and public spaces.
In her experiential talk, Lupton will present examples and ideas from an exhibition she co-curated, “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision,” which was designed by Wendy Evans Joseph and Studio Joseph for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. This groundbreaking exhibition employed sensory design techniques to create a rich and accessible experience for everyone, including people with diverse sensory abilities.
Lupton’s books Design is Storytelling (Cooper Hewitt, 2017) and Health Design Thinking (Cooper Hewitt and MIT Press, 2020) are lively guides to the design process. Lupton’s popular videos on Instagram (@EllenLupton) employ humor, sensory design and narrative structure to teach design principles to an ever-growing audience.
The new edition of Lupton’s bestselling book Thinking with Type (Princeton Architectural Press) launched in 2024. She also edited Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming (Princeton Architectural Press and Maryland Institute College of Art, 2010) and co-authored Extra Bold (Princeton Architectural Press, 2021).
In addition to teaching in the graphic design program at MICA, Lupton serves as the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair.
Lupton is a Curator Emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where her exhibitions include "Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master” and “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision.” Her Type Mom persona on Instagram has more than 195,000 followers.
The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects.
This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.
