Maria Rogal

My trans-cultural background and perspective influence my work, in which I explore the potential of design and visual communication to shape the human experience positively. I founded Design for Development (D4D) to co-design with indigenous entrepreneurs in rural Mexico and subject matter experts on grassroots economic development projects. By co-designing with clients as partners, I find it is possible to develop products and strategies relevant to the context and constituents. My intent, to this end, is to orient the design discipline toward methods and socially conscious outcomes that are sustainable and responsible. Most recently I co-founded Codesigning Equitable Futures with Dori Griffin and Laura Gonzales.

With Raúl Sánchez, I co-authored the chapter “CoDesigning for Development” in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, edited by RB Egenhoffer. London: Routledge Press (2018). I received several grants to support my work, including a Sappi “Ideas That Matter” grant (with Gaby Hernández), the inaugural American Institute of Graphic Arts Design Research Grant, and three Fulbright grants. I share my work on design methods and pedagogy at conferences, including the AIGA H3 Biennial Conference, the AIGA New Contexts/New Practices Social Economies thread, GLIDE ‘10: Global Interaction in Design—where I was awarded best paper—and at MX Design Conference: Social Impact of Design (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City). My article “Identity and Representation: (Yucatec) Maya in the Visual Culture of Tourism” was published in the Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies Journal. I was one of 24 international educators contributing to the  Icograda Design Education Manifesto Update.

My creative design work has appeared in national and international juried exhibitions in the UK, Hungary, Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, and the US. In the past, I have worked as a senior designer for Sapient (Atlanta) on the design of large-scale websites for international clients, including the Dutch bank ING, and worked at other design agencies and the US Government. I served on design juries, including Design Incubation’s Communication Design Educators Awards program from 2016–2020, chairing the program in 2018 and 2019.

I received my MFA in Design/Visual Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University. Before that, I studied Political Science at Villanova University where I received my BA, and later studied design at the University of Maryland as a post-bac student to begin design studies. You will see the influences of a liberal arts education, early work in economic and social development, and an interest in the political economy in my work.