KU School of Architecture & Design announces spring 2025 design lecture series schedule


LAWRENCE — The School of Architecture & Design at the University of Kansas has announced programming for the Spring 2025 KU Design Professional Lecture Series. 

For over four decades, the KU Design Professional Lecture Series (formerly the Hallmark Symposium) has introduced KU students and the local creative community to accomplished artists and designers working in a wide range of disciplines, media and professional fields. 

Lectures begin at 6 p.m. in 3140 Wescoe Hall on the KU Lawrence campus. Events are free and open to the public.

Jan. 30 

Jacob Crawford is a designer and KU industrial design program graduate who has developed footwear, accessories, packaging and textiles for multiple sportswear and lifestyle brands. Currently, as a footwear designer at Vans, the iconic skateboard shoes and apparel brand, Crawford has designed performance, lifestyle and children’s shoes. With an artful application of research, technical expertise and creative inspiration, Crawford works to ensure his designs meet the functional and stylistic needs of customers.

Feb. 13 

Chad Hutson, chief strategy officer at Dimensional Innovations, has forged a notable career leading teams of creative and technology professionals to help some of the world’s most recognized brands and entertainers transform physical spaces into engaging analog and digital experiences. At Dimensional Innovations, Hutson works with experience design, fabrication and technology teams to develop innovative and immersive customer experiences. Formerly, as co-founder and CEO of specialized creative agency Leviathan, Hutson led operations, business development and strategy for the organization, which fostered client relationships with Airbus, Amazon, Disney, FedEx, Nike, T-Mobile and Universal and others.

Feb. 27 

Adam Ekberg creates photographic works that evoke narratives and provoke critical commentary. Through surrealistic photographs that depict mass-produced consumer objects removed from context — arranged in sculptural assemblages, isolated in natural landscapes and often captured in motion — Ekberg uses scale, juxtaposition and sendups of popular visual culture to create compositions that can feel both playfully comedic and unsettlingly enigmatic. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the George Eastman Museum and others.

March 6 

Chad Beckerman is an art director focusing on design, strategy and directing illustration and images for stories. Beckerman has overseen the design of picture books, novels, graphic novels, and art and entertainment books — including 40 New York Times bestsellers — under the Abrams Appleseed, Abrams Books for Young Readers, Amulet Books and Abrams ComicArts imprints. He currently maintains an independent studio specializing in art direction, book design, illustration and photography.

March 27 

Kelli Connell is an image-based artist who investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer-sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and others. Publications include "Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis" (Aperture and Center for Creative Photography, March 2024), "PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice" (Aperture), "Photo Art: The New World of Photography" (Aperture) and the monograph "Kelli Connell: Double Life" (DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships and residencies from organizations that include the Center for Creative Photography, Guggenheim Foundation, Light Work and MacDowell.

April 10 

Jeff Breazeale is a designer, brand strategist and founding partner at The Matchbox Studio. He has worked for over 25 years helping clients identify brand opportunities and develop creative solutions. At Matchbox Studio, he has led teams developing work for clients that include American Airlines, Dallas Museum of Art, FedEx, Fossil, Neenah Paper, the State Fair of Texas and others. In 2020, Breazeale launched MBX Real Estate Creative, a sister agency to Matchbox dedicated to multifamily residential branding.

April 24 

Dan Padavic is a multimedia art director, printmaker and founder of Vahalla Studios, a full service flat-stock screen printing and letterpress studio in North Kansas City, Missouri. Padavic’s work incorporates the hand of a printmaker combined with the sensibilities of a graphic designer to produce multifaceted strategic branding projects for clients large and small.

Wed, 01/29/2025

author

Dan Rolf

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Dan Rolf

Architecture & Design

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