Contact
- micah.barrett@gmail.com
- @micahmicah
- Based in San Francisco, CA
Experience
- December 2019 – current
- Contract Senior Designer
- Apple
- Cupertino, CA
Working as a member of the Marcom team at Apple.
- September 2019 – November 2019
- Freelance Senior Designer
- Manual
- San Francisco, CA
Worked with Manual on the re-brand of Bolt Threads.
- July 2019 – September 2019
- Freelance Designer
- Figma
- San Francisco, CA
Assisted in the re-launch of Figma’s visual identity with an emphasis on typography.
- 2017 – 2019
- Design Assistant
- Yale University Art Gallery
- New Haven, CT
Worked with the in-house team to develop graphic identities and collateral for exhibitions and special programming. Assisted in the re-design of the museum’s magazine and developed a set of animated screens in the museum’s lobby powered by an editable CMS.
- 2016 – 2017
- Director of Design, Media Group
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Led the in-house graphic design team as part of RISD’s Media Group to develop and implement campaigns, information architecture, and collateral for institutional initiatives, ranging from admissions to fundraising to institutional data. Responsible for hiring and on-boarding of freelance, full-time, and intern design, and web development staff.
- 2014 – 2016
- Associate Director of Design, Media
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Led the in-house graphic design staff to develop and implement campaigns and collateral for a number of in-house clients with a focus on admissions and institutional engagement. Worked with other members of the Media Group to develop new components of RISD’s institutional website. Managed several interns and freelancers.
- 2012 – 2014
- Graphic Designer
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Designed catalogs, posters, advertising collateral, websites, e-mails and other pieces of graphic output to support admissions, fundraising, and other institutional initiatives.
- 2011
- Graphic Designer
- Urban Influence
- Seattle, WA
Assisted in the design and development of several pieces of collateral for Urban Influence’s clients in industries ranging from software to finance to insurance. Created several pieces of internally facing collateral and assisted with the art direction and management of several design interns.
- 2010 – 2010
- Graphic Designer
- Graphiti Associates
- Seattle, WA
Assisted in the design and development of packaging, info-graphics, websites, posters, and presentations for Graphiti’s clients ranging from local seafood producers to Getty Images.
- 2008 – 2008
- Graphic Designer
- C3 Worldwide
- Seattle, WA
Designed graphics for t-shirts, headwear, snowboard bindings and advertising for two internally managed brands, Coal Headwear and Union Binding company.
- 2007 – 2008
- Graphic Designer
- Dept. of Energy
- Seattle, WA
Created designs and illustrations for Dept. of Energy’s clients with an emphasis in the action sports industry. Work was developed for trade show booths, t-shirts, snowboards, catalogs, websites, and other collateral. Designed and developed Dept. of Energy’s website and was responsible for in-house photography.
- 2004 – 2007
- Graphic Designer
- Zumiez
- Lynnwood, WA
Designed store signage, advertising, gift-cards, apparel graphics, and promotional items as part of an in-house marketing team. Shot and edited promotional videos and photographs for use in advertising and in-house events.
Teaching
- 2016 – 2016
- Typography 3
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Led a section for junior level undergraduate students in graphic design to engage with robust typographic systems. Students used typography as a lens into many issues of the discipline as the course was broken up into several descrete units, “type as structure”, “type as form”, “type as theory”, “type as narrative” and finally “type as documentation.”
- 2013 – 2016
- Typography 2
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Led a section of sophomore level undergraduate students in graphic design. Students focus on developing an intimate understanding of both informational and visual hierarchy through a series of assignments and exercises. Throughout the semester students read a series of essays and writings about graphic design in which they are required to respond to through their making and class discussions. The essays then become the source material for their final project in the course. Lectured to all sections about the similarities and differences in designing for digital and printed reading environments as well as an introduction to different methods in which type was designed and developed throughout history.
- 2014 – 2015
- Bigger Than Yourself
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Developed a curriculum for site specific large scale graphic installations. The course focused on self authorship and offered students different constraints surrounding their making process. Discussions surrounded issues of materiality, location, ownership, and scale as new considerations for graphic designers used to working in distributed media. The course was mostly comprised of seniors and graduate students in graphic design with the addition of several students coming from other disciplines.
- 2013
- Introduction to Web Design
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
Developed a curriculum for a two week intensive introduction to the basics of web design. The course began with a focus on a technical introduction to HTML and CSS before transitioning into focusing on layout, navigation, story telling, and interface. Students completed a series of exercises in week one before authoring a small self-directed project in week two.
- 2012
- Co Taught: Graphic Design 2
- Northeastern Unversity
- Boston, MA
Co-taught a course focusing on visual systems and campaign thinking. Students developed a multi-part campaign surrounding a social issue of their choosing. Students were tasked with considering issues of clarity, narrativity, representation, and craft. Co-taught under the supervision of Mark Laughlin.
Accolades
- 2016
- Work Exhibited in Print Magazine Regional Design Annual
- 2015
- Work Exhibited in 2015 RISD Faculty Biennial
- 2016
- Nominated for the John R. Frazier award for excellence in teaching
- 2013
- Work Exhibited in 2013 RISD Faculty Biennial
- 2012
- Work Exhibited in New Contemporaries Gelman Gallery RISD
- 2012
- Work Exhibited in the Senior Invitational
- 2011
- Recipient of Albert R. Pontes scholarship for excellence in graphic design
- 2011
- Recipient of Sahre Victore scholarship
- 2010
- Recipient of Albert R. Pontes scholarship for excellence in graphic design
- 2008
- Merit Award 2007 Seattle Show
- 2006
- Work Exhibited in Seattle Havana Poster Show
Academic Service
- 2016
- Graphic Design department faculty search committee
- 2015
- Illustration department faculty search committee
- 2011
- Graphic Design department student representative
Lectures and Workshops
- 2013 – 2016
- SURF fellowship poster design workshop
Each year I worked with faculty at University of Rhode Island and the staff at the Edna Lawrence Nature Lab to introduce typographic basics to undergraduate and graduate biology students working in the SURF program. The workshop focuses on information and visual hierarchy in order to help the students create more informative visualizations of their research.
- 2013
- AIGA Rhode Island: Modern Pictograms
Part of a talk about John Caserta’s Modern Pictograms project. I shared my making process in the development of the printed specimen in collaboration with John.
Education
- 2017 - 2019
- Master of Fine Arts
- Graphic Design
- Yale School of Art
- New Haven, CT
- 2009 – 2012
- Bachelor of Fine Arts
- Graphic Design
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Providence, RI
- 2002 – 2004
- Graphic Design and Illustration
- Seattle Central Community College
- Seattle, WA
Skills
- Mastery of Adobe Creative Suite for graphic design and print production.
- Extensive knowledge of commercial printing processes.
- Digital Photography and processing of RAW assets through LightRoom
- HTML5 / CSS / SASS
- Light JavaScript and jQuery knowledge
- Familiarity with building sites on popular CMS platforms such as WordPress and Jekyll (this site).
- Robofont type design software
- Python for DrawBot and Robofont
References
- Available upon request.