Teaching
2019–2025

Since joining the faculty in the Department of Graphic Design at Boston University College of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts in Fall of 2019, I have had the privilege of collaborating with outstanding colleagues in an environment that values scholarship through research, teaching, and practice. These experiences have allowed me to refine my pedagogical approach while strengthening my own creative scholarship. I have developed new syllabi and curricula from core design studio courses, including Sophomore Graphic Design Studio and Senior Thesis Studio, to electives such as Visual Systems, Branding, Typography, and Design Theory.


Boston University Graphic Design BFA ‘25
My studio and curatorial practice and research inform my teaching and reflect my belief that design is not only about making, but also about questioning, reflecting, and learning within community. My pedagogy is responsive to contemporary discourse, emerging technologies, and the evolving needs of my students.  
        My approach centers on mentorship, connecting the classroom to the professional world, and continually refining my teaching through reflection and unlearning. Driven by language, identity, and collaboration, my work demonstrates how design can provoke critical reflection, foster dialogue, and make meaningful change. Beyond teaching technical skills, I aim to cultivate critical awareness, empowering students to leverage design as a tool for inclusivity and socially engaged practice.
        Mentorship and connecting students to the professional world are central to my approach as an educator, where I foster interdisciplinary thinking, adaptability, and brave making, helping students contextualize their work.


Sophomore Graphic Design Studio (Fall)


Project: Alphabet Forms
Students collect found letterforms as inspiration to create new typographic forms through analog and digital processes, emphasizing experimentation and iteration. The final outcome is presented as an A–Z accordion book, forming a sequence that highlights process and visual and conceptual relationships.

Bugs
Scarlett Cain (BFA ‘28)
Fall 2025
Project: Shapes Collection
Students investigate how to translate observed objects into graphic form by creating object and shape collections, experimenting with 2D compositions that demonstrate principles of design, and ultimately scaling their work into a large poster integrating form and typography.
Bio-circuitry
Emily Parsons (BFA ‘28) 
Fall 2025

Shoals
Clara Lewis (BFA ‘27) 
Fall 2024

Picnic

Cameron Dickson (BFA ‘28)
Fall 2024

Adventure
Kaitlyn Deng (BFA ‘28)
Fall 2025

Project: Packaging Emotions
Students are assigned a trait, emotion or value to expand into a conceptual packaging design. Through research, iteration, and prototyping, they translate abstract qualities into form, material, and visual language, creating a packaging concept that embodies their word.
Leadership
Kate Saluti (BFA ‘28)
Fall 2025


Sophomore Graphic Design Studio (Spring)



Project: Virtual Exhibition
During COVID-19, students developed a collaborative virtual studio and online exhibition to showcase a curated selection of semester projects. The platform created space to share process, research, and outcomes in an open, unpolished format, fostering community, transparency, and connection while redefining how design work could be created and experienced during isolation.

Read about the project
Studio355.desktop
Spring 2020

Jon Vogel, Leo Feininger, Ashlie Dawkins, Amanda Marki, Seyun Om,  Yiqing (Wendy) Li, Tammie Kim (BFA ‘23)
Spring 2020

Project: Broadside
Students designed broadsides—functioning as both poster and booklet—based on self-selected research topics. The booklet format conveyed a sequential narrative, while the expanded poster presented a cohesive visual language that synthesized key ideas.
Geo Ferrai, Chloe Carson, Cindy Chan, Jayna Mikolaitis, Kylie Carroll (BFA ‘23)
Spring 2020

Project: Symbol
Students selected an urgent message (warning, fact or directive) and translated it into a set of 3–5 symbols. Using a grid-based square composition, they developed an animation that explored pacing, sequence, and transition to communicate their message to an intended audience.


Senior Thesis Studio


This self-directed course, the final requirement for the BFA, is centered on a semester-long thesis project or series of projects and includes three components: the Thesis Project and Book, Thesis Show, and Final Thesis Presentation. Students create a cohesive body of work that communicates a single idea or addresses a specific design problem, emphasizing the role of the designer as author through a self-motivated project that strengthens their individual process, problem-solving skills, and design voice.


Project: Thesis Show
I guide students in curating, designing, and producing their thesis exhibition identity and spatial experience. Through critiques and iterative development, I help them develop cohesive visual systems, exhibition materials, and presentations, presenting their culminating work in a unified and engaging group exhibition.
BFA Thesis Show, Graphic Design
Spring 2024
Graphic Design Thesis Show: Breakout Room
Spring 2021
BFA Thesis Show Branding: Breaking Out
Spring 2021

Project: BFA Thesis Show Branding
I work with a group of students to advise on developing the brand identity for the overall BFA Thesis Show, encompassing Painting, Graphic Design, Printmaking, and Sculpture, guiding them from concept to production.

View thesis catalog
Project: Thesis Books
Students author, design, and produce a thesis book that synethesizes their final thesis projects including their thesis statement, research, essay, experiments, interview(s), influences, references, and past works.
Roots: Ways of Making
Vincent Liu (BFA ‘24)
Spring 2024

Making, Moving, Making
Angela Lian (BFA ‘21)
Spring 2021

Internet Tenderness / Should I Have Been a Dentist?
Eva Brown (BFA ‘24)
Spring 2024

Branding


Musuem of Moving Image  
Lauren Greenblatt (MFA ‘25)
Fall 2024
Project: Rebrand
Students select an art entity to rebrand, develop a new logo, and expand the concept into a comprehensive brand identity system.

The Third Page
Madison Hoppler (MFA ‘26)
Fall 2025
Project: Build Your Own Brand
Students receive a research topic to explore and expand upon in order to develop and define their own brand. The project focused on building a strong brand identity through storytelling and world-building.

Identity designed by BU BFA and MFA Branding class: Owen Casey, Pink Chotikakovit, Jason Dong, Ghazaleh Farrokhi, Riley Fitzpatrick, Lilia Geguchadze, Lauren Greenblatt, Wenbin Huang, Shi Shi Jacobs, Caitlin Lu, Soph Russo, Xinran Wang, Jingyi Zhang, Chichi Zhao. TA: Brady George.
Fall 2024
Project: Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1
As the host of Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1 at Boston University, I worked with my Branding class BFA and MFA students to design the visual identity, website, print collateral, digital assets, and swag shaping the event and communications to create a lively atmosphere.

Learn more about Design Incubation Colloquium 11.1


Visual Systems


Polyphonic
Yunxi (Lucy) Ye (MFA ‘26)
Spring 2025

Project: Multilingual Systems
Students imagine a language system that functions as a multilingual form understood by two or more language audiences and develop a system integrating English with another language, considering aesthetic and functional elements while fostering cross-cultural understanding.

Photosynthesizing
Sheryl Peng (BFA ‘25)
Spring 2025

Project: Performative Bodies
Students design a spatial program that invites audiences to learn about an overlooked topic through embodied participation, creating a performative system guided by a score or set of instructions and informed by participatory, conditional, and performative design strategies. 
Hearing Visualizations through Classical Music
Qingyang (Helen) Liu (MFA ‘26)
Spring 2025

Project: Translation for the Senses
Students identify an inherently non-visual system that engages the senses, translate it into graphic form using a self-defined set of rules, and implement the visual system into an experiential medium of their choice.


Junior Graphic Design Studio



Project: The End of Design
Students were encouraged to explore the possibilities and test the limitations of generative AI. They were prompted to explore a topic of their choice and then question, challenge, and define the role of creativity and authorship in the design process when using AI.

✸ Presented at the College Art Association Annual Conference and AIGA DEC Symposium
Dear Dall-E
Leena Jang (BFA ‘24)

Who Am I?
Sarah Nam (BFA ‘24)

Unpopular AI Opinions That You Missed
Vincent Liu (BFA ‘24)

Heartbreak
Yewon Park (BFA ‘24)

Spring 2023


Junior Typography


Project: Risograph Workshop
Studio visit and risograph workshop at Loyal Studio. I hosted a risograph workshop to produce a typographic political calendar in anticipation for the 2019 elections.
Fall 2019
✸ Exhibited in Riso Circles: The World in Halftone, Design Gallery, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA and Boston Art Book Fair
Project: Typographic Identity
Students develop a typographic identity for a cultural institution or event across print and digital applications.
Boston Art Book Fair
Abby Fenn (BFA ‘21)
Fall 2019

Project: Karl Fortess Archive
Students worked with the Karl Fortess Audio Archive artist interviews to transcribe and design them into a publication series. Final project was exhibited in the School of Visual Arts library.
Fall 2019


Junior Typography: Motion + Interactivity


Project: Time-Based Narrative
Students selected a narrative to tell through a 30-second animation using type.
Vincent Liu, Tiffany Taw (BFA ‘24)
Spring 2023



Project: Print to Motion
Students selected their favorite item from The People’s Graphic Design Archive, researched the item, and animated the item to reveal its historical context and meaning. Students analyzed the grid, typography, and imagery from their selections to create storyboards that were developed into looping animations.
Pink Chotikakovit, Goria Huang, Amina Hachimura (BFA ‘25)
Spring 2024

Featured in The People’s Graphic Design Archive

Annika Pyo, Luci Barrett, Hailey Wang (BFA ‘25)


Project: Multiple Formats Art Book Fair
Students created typographic animations buidling off of the Multiple Formats Art Book Fair visual identity. Final animations were projected as signage and wayfinding during the event.
Mina Chung, Kexin Zhang,  Andreina De La Blanca, Lauren Had, Julia So (BFA ‘23)
Spring 2022


Graduate Typography II



Project: Large Scale TypeStudents study type and its relation to the body and environment through creating large scale type installations.
Michael Rosenburg, Ariella Eptstein (MFA ‘20), Mariana Ramirez, Weiyun (Winnie) Chen, Arjun Kumar, Sohini Mukherjee (MFA ‘21)
Spring 2020



Project: Alphabet
Students developed a modular alphabet based on an expected object or grid system.
Arjun Kumar, Weiyun (Winnie) Chen (MFA ‘20)
Spring 2020

© 2026 Mary Y. Yang