Aggie Toppins, "Thinking through Graphic Design History"

Join us in the new SVA Graduate Center for a conversation with Aggie Toppins, designer, educator, and author of Thinking Through Graphic Design History: Challenging the Canon (Bloomsbury 2025). Toppins will discuss her new book that surveys the terrain where historical research and visual communication meet, exploring the paradox of originality in design practice, the narrow and Eurocentric focus of traditional graphic design narratives, and how history can be reexamined to shape more socially engaged and critical design practices. 

Doors at 6 p.m.

Program at 6:30 p.m.

Reception to follow.

Reception and book signing to follow.

Books available via HeadHi.

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Aggie Toppins is an award-winning designer and educator who writes about where graphics come from, what they do, and how they change over time. She is an Associate Professor and Chair of Design at Washington University in St. Louis.

Toppins is the author of the forthcoming book Thinking Through Graphic Design History. She has written for field-leading journals like Design and Culture, Design Issues, Slanted, Eye, and AIGA Eye on Design. She contributed to two recent books, Feminist Designer, edited by Alison Place, and Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History, edited by Briar Levit.

About Thinking Through Graphic Design History:

Graphic design has a paradoxical relationship to history. While it claims to promote originality and innovation — ideas that emphasize the new and unique — design practice is deeply embedded in previous ideals. Too often, design students encounter the past in brief visual impressions which seduce them to imitate form rather than engage with historical contexts. Even though it has claimed to be objective and even comprehensive, graphic design history has focused largely on individual careers and Eurocentric achievements. Yet the past swells with untapped potential. Graphic design history can serve the field of today and tomorrow, but its narratives require updates. History, like design, is always changing — and like design, history is driven by present-day questions. Thinking Through Graphic Design History shows how students and practicing designers can enrich their work by thinking historically about design. With thoughtful analyses, stimulating creative prompts, inspiring case studies, and perspectives from designers all over the world, this book challenges our traditional understanding of graphic design history, and the very notion of the design canon, offering ways to shape socially engaged, critical practices.

Host or Publisher SVA MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism