AIGA Colorado Speaker Series: Rich Tu

Creative Director behind FIFA's 2026 Poster, WNBA, and SVA Faculty talks career and craft with an audience Q+A moderated by Rick Griffith.
About this Event

$10 student | $15 Members | $25 non members

We’re back at the Denver Art Museum for the signature AIGA CO Speaker Series.

This month we welcome who will share a working designer’s honest account of a non-traditional career path. As Partner and Executive Creative Director at Sunday Afternoon, Tu has put his creative fingerprint on some of the most visible names in our culture — Nike, MTV, Paramount, HOKA, FIFA World Cup, WNBA — building his career with an approach that defies convention and creates lasting impact.

A Robust Q+A

After his presentation, Tu sits down for a live Q+A moderated by Rick Griffith, the creative mind behind MATTER — Denver's design studio, manufactory, and bookshop — who will guide the post conversation. Audience questions are encouraged, so do a little Rich-search and come ready to participate.

But there is more

Before Sunday Afternoon, Tu built his chops in-house — leading creative at Jones Knowles Ritchie, MTV Entertainment Group, and Nike. The industry took notice: an ADC Young Guns award, the Paul Manship Medallion, and honors from D&AD, Webby, and CLIO. He'll be the first to tell you the path there was anything but a straight line.

He also earned his MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay at the School of Visual Arts, where he now teaches. He hosted First Generation Burden, a Webby-honored podcast that gets honest about identity, intersectionality, and what it actually costs to be "the first" in a creative career. And he co-founded COLORFUL, an awards and grant program with The One Club for Creativity built to fund early-career BIPOC creatives — because talent finding its way in shouldn't depend on who already knows someone.

Don't miss it.
Join us for a discussion translating a non-traditional path into work that's shaped culture. This is the kind of night you build your week around, not squeeze in after everything else.

Instagram: @rich_tu and @wearesundayafternoon

Agenda

🕑: 05:30 PM - 06:30 PM
Networking // Food + Drinks
🕑: 06:30 PM - 07:15 PM
Welcome & Rich Tu
🕑: 07:15 PM - 08:00 PM
Q+A : Rich Tu and Rick Griffith