KU School of Architecture & Design announces spring 2026 design lecture series schedule

LAWRENCE — The School of Architecture & Design at the University of Kansas has announced programming for the Spring 2026 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 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. 29 

JD Hooge is a graphic designer based in Portland, Oregon, currently working on developing Mono Space, a high-fidelity listening gallery dedicated to the preservation of music culture, and Strata Foundation, an arts engagement nonprofit. Previously, Hooge co-founded the creative agency Instrument and served as its chief creative officer.

Feb. 5 

Nicolas Thetard is an industrial designer specializing in interactive displays in production vehicles. Originally from France, Thetard began his career as an automotive interiors designer and expanded to the design of in-vehicle digital experiences. Thetard’s portfolio includes dozens of production and concept cars.

Feb. 19  

Jen White-Johnson is a disabled, neurodivergent Afro-Latina art activist and design educator whose work utilizes photography, zines and collage art to explore the intersection of content and caregiving, emphasizing the redesign of ableist visual culture. White-Johnson’s work has been featured in Adobe, Afropunk and PBS and collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

March 5 

Matthias Pliessnig is a furniture designer whose work employs computer-aided fabrication and handcraft to create expressively sculptural chairs and benches primarily with steam-bent wood strips. Pliessnig’s work has been exhibited and collected by the Museum of Art and Design in New York and the Smithsonian American Museum and featured in publications that include Architectural Record, Dwell, Forbes and Interior Design. 

March 26  

Kellie Walters is a color and materials design manager at Ford Motor Company. Her research generates critical design practice and forecasts speculative aesthetic futures considering the connections among humans, objects, climate and technology.

April 9 

Nelson Chan is a photographer and co-founder of independent art book publisher TIS Books. Born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Chan creates work influenced by the immigrant experience. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, the Boston Center for the Arts, the Museum of Chinese in America in New York and the Print Center in Philadelphia. His books are collected in the institutional libraries of the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and others. 

April 23 

Rebecca Gilbert is a letterpress printer, archivist, consultant and co-founder of Craft Printing House, Clatskanie, Oregon, which offers design and letterpress printing services for literary broadsides, chapbooks, ephemera, posters and event materials. In 1999, Gilbert co-founded Firefly Press in Portland, Oregon, which eventually grew into Stumptown Printers Worker Cooperative, a traditional commercial printing house that prints and manufactures unique album covers, custom product packaging, cards, posters and other crafted paper goods.