By Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady
How does working side by side, as husband and wife, strengthen your collaboration? Our theory is that all couples have the same amount of fight in them. You can either spend it on battling over in-laws or busting your partner’s improper kerning.
All joking aside, our unique partnership allows us to accomplish more together than either of us is able to do alone. We talk about things over dinner, or work on a project at four in the morning. Unlimited access to another person’s big, beautiful brain allows you to transcend issues created by time and space and accomplish things faster.
We’ve also gotten really good at cajoling each other along. We cross boundaries impeded by the politeness of normal working relationships. That’s not necessarily unique to marriage. It could happen between any pair who fully trust each other, recognize the other person’s strengths and understand how to diminish their weaknesses. It also helps when you can smack talk without risk of insult or litigation.
How did you first meet? Jenn: We met at Kent State, when I was a graduate student and he was an undergrad, like ships crossing through a highly competitive design program. I may have noticed the Robbie Williams-looking guy frequenting the resource room. He may have noticed my fuzzy sweater collection. Regardless, grads and undergrads didn’t really fraternize.
One day, Ken lit a project on fire in a class I was assisting—attention-seeking behavior, even if it was a legitimate presentation involving flash paper and spy museum branding. I have plausible deniability on checking him out in class for any other reason. But I did ask if he would like a tour of the graduate studio.
Ken: At the end of that semester I rolled out my best line in the hallway and said “Uh… Do you have any gum?” Yep. She married me.
As professors, how are you preparing your students for the design landscape of the future? Until we get our time machine working, we’re unsure of exactly what to prepare them for, so we focus on developing things like work ethic, attention to detail and self-directed learning strategies. We stress problem-solving skills—especially for tackling those big, messy, unframed problems. We try to get them thinking beyond design artifacts. Hopefully we’re also teaching them something about humor under pressure, how to work in teams without being the biggest jerk, how to survive solo when you’d rather work on a team and how to explain to your parents that you really do have a viable career path.
In your classroom, how are you defining new roles for design? Design-for-good projects are becoming classroom and studio standards, and we’re all better for it—from the audiences served to the designers whose personal and professional lives are enriched by doing so.
In our classes, we try to combine service learning with an emphasis on the power of connectivity. Those same networking skills that will benefit a student in a future job hunt may also benefit a community. We’ve tried to illustrate this by fostering relationships and leveraging our own personal connections to bring real world, messy problems to our students.
Through friends at Chicago’s Rule29, Ken’s graduate students at Kent were connected with nonprofit partners to investigate how design can help diagnose and treat malaria and educate people in developing nations about basic sanitation and hygiene. Next semester, working with an expert ALICE training officer (Ken’s cousin), they’ll investigate how design can facilitate better evacuations of public spaces in the event of an active shooter. The projects are open-ended, and at the outset, there’s no guarantee that design can make a difference.
At Cleveland State, Jenn has her students working on design projects that get tweens and teens excited about Mars exploration and Project Orion. Even though these are hypothetical class projects, students present the finished work to NASA experts. What started with Jenn’s inviting a friend to class as a content expert has resulted in student internships and even full-time employment with NASA subcontractors. It’s also helping NASA better understand design and how valuable it is to their mission. It’s pretty amazing to have an actual rocket scientist excited about student design work, and empowering to see the level of professionalism and respect that NASA employees reflect back to a classroom of art school kids.
How do you juggle your own design practice with teaching? When do you make time to design? As we’ve veered from traditional design practice, we’ve both taken on administrative roles at our respective universities, so now instead of running a small creative business, we’re part of running educational nonprofit behemoths. In this land of academic lifers, our business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit can be both a blessing and a curse. We’ve become adept at navigating Rube Goldbergian bureaucracy, extinguishing metaphorical fires and dispensing pep talks.
All of which is interesting and exciting, but lately we’ve missed designing. Next we’ll focus on a passion project, inspired by our intern Lulu, who is eight and lives in our studio—which might also be a house. The working title is Designers and Daughters, and stems from the fact that there are still too many glass ceilings, too few female super heroes (in too-tiny outfits), and too much emphasis on prettiness over strength and smarts.
We need more images and ideas that will resonate with little girls and the young women they are becoming. And we’re going to lean on our design family to diversify the message. Who better than professional creatives, collaborating with their own daughters, to tell stories that empower? Let us know if you want to get on board.
All joking aside, our unique partnership allows us to accomplish more together than either of us is able to do alone. We talk about things over dinner, or work on a project at four in the morning. Unlimited access to another person’s big, beautiful brain allows you to transcend issues created by time and space and accomplish things faster.
We’ve also gotten really good at cajoling each other along. We cross boundaries impeded by the politeness of normal working relationships. That’s not necessarily unique to marriage. It could happen between any pair who fully trust each other, recognize the other person’s strengths and understand how to diminish their weaknesses. It also helps when you can smack talk without risk of insult or litigation.
How did you first meet? Jenn: We met at Kent State, when I was a graduate student and he was an undergrad, like ships crossing through a highly competitive design program. I may have noticed the Robbie Williams-looking guy frequenting the resource room. He may have noticed my fuzzy sweater collection. Regardless, grads and undergrads didn’t really fraternize.
One day, Ken lit a project on fire in a class I was assisting—attention-seeking behavior, even if it was a legitimate presentation involving flash paper and spy museum branding. I have plausible deniability on checking him out in class for any other reason. But I did ask if he would like a tour of the graduate studio.
Ken: At the end of that semester I rolled out my best line in the hallway and said “Uh… Do you have any gum?” Yep. She married me.
As professors, how are you preparing your students for the design landscape of the future? Until we get our time machine working, we’re unsure of exactly what to prepare them for, so we focus on developing things like work ethic, attention to detail and self-directed learning strategies. We stress problem-solving skills—especially for tackling those big, messy, unframed problems. We try to get them thinking beyond design artifacts. Hopefully we’re also teaching them something about humor under pressure, how to work in teams without being the biggest jerk, how to survive solo when you’d rather work on a team and how to explain to your parents that you really do have a viable career path.
In your classroom, how are you defining new roles for design? Design-for-good projects are becoming classroom and studio standards, and we’re all better for it—from the audiences served to the designers whose personal and professional lives are enriched by doing so.
In our classes, we try to combine service learning with an emphasis on the power of connectivity. Those same networking skills that will benefit a student in a future job hunt may also benefit a community. We’ve tried to illustrate this by fostering relationships and leveraging our own personal connections to bring real world, messy problems to our students.
Through friends at Chicago’s Rule29, Ken’s graduate students at Kent were connected with nonprofit partners to investigate how design can help diagnose and treat malaria and educate people in developing nations about basic sanitation and hygiene. Next semester, working with an expert ALICE training officer (Ken’s cousin), they’ll investigate how design can facilitate better evacuations of public spaces in the event of an active shooter. The projects are open-ended, and at the outset, there’s no guarantee that design can make a difference.
At Cleveland State, Jenn has her students working on design projects that get tweens and teens excited about Mars exploration and Project Orion. Even though these are hypothetical class projects, students present the finished work to NASA experts. What started with Jenn’s inviting a friend to class as a content expert has resulted in student internships and even full-time employment with NASA subcontractors. It’s also helping NASA better understand design and how valuable it is to their mission. It’s pretty amazing to have an actual rocket scientist excited about student design work, and empowering to see the level of professionalism and respect that NASA employees reflect back to a classroom of art school kids.
How do you juggle your own design practice with teaching? When do you make time to design? As we’ve veered from traditional design practice, we’ve both taken on administrative roles at our respective universities, so now instead of running a small creative business, we’re part of running educational nonprofit behemoths. In this land of academic lifers, our business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit can be both a blessing and a curse. We’ve become adept at navigating Rube Goldbergian bureaucracy, extinguishing metaphorical fires and dispensing pep talks.
All of which is interesting and exciting, but lately we’ve missed designing. Next we’ll focus on a passion project, inspired by our intern Lulu, who is eight and lives in our studio—which might also be a house. The working title is Designers and Daughters, and stems from the fact that there are still too many glass ceilings, too few female super heroes (in too-tiny outfits), and too much emphasis on prettiness over strength and smarts.
We need more images and ideas that will resonate with little girls and the young women they are becoming. And we’re going to lean on our design family to diversify the message. Who better than professional creatives, collaborating with their own daughters, to tell stories that empower? Let us know if you want to get on board.
Jenn Visocky O’Grady is a professor and chair of the art department at Cleveland State University, and Ken Visocky O’Grady is a professor and graduate coordinator at Kent State University. Together they’ve co-authored Design Currency, The Information Design Handbook and A Designer’s Research Manual. The couple strives to make academic concepts approachable while celebrating the power, impact and potential of good design. The Visocky O’Gradys travel North America as design advocates, presenting workshops and lectures at creative industry events, including those by AIGA, HOW and RGD. They also promote the value of design to organizations such as NASA and the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research (CIFAR). As native Clevelanders, Jenn and Ken proudly claim Ohio as home.
