Design History, Typography Design, Typography History, Design Education, Pedagogical Practices

Professional Experience

Ms. LaPorte has extensive professional experience, having previously worked in the Design Department at the Walker Art Center. She has also served as a graphic designer for the California Institute of the Arts and the College for Creative Studies. Her clients include the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Wayne State University; the English Language Institute; the University of Michigan Botanical Gardens; the General Motors Design Center; the College for Creative Studies; and ArtServe Michigan. Ms. LaPorte received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1991 and her BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1989. Her design work has been published in Eye, Emigre, Print, Typography Now I, and Type Design & Radical Innovations and Experimentation. She has also been featured in the American Center for Design (ACD) 100 Shows (numbers 16, 18, 21), the AIGA Detroit Review (2003 & 2005), and exhibitions such as the “I Profess…Exhibition” at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, the “In Cahoots Alumni Show” at the California Institute of the Arts, and the “AIGA Get Out the Vote” Initiative (2004 & 2008), and again in the 20th Anniversary of “I Profess…Exhibition” at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, (2024).

In 2012, Ms. LaPorte presented at the AIGA Design Educators Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. She also spoke at the 2015 RGD Design Educators Conference in Toronto, Canada; the 2016 AIGA Design Educators Conference, “Nuts & Bolts,” at Bowling Green University in Ohio; the 2019 “AICAD Citizen Designer Conference” on Communication Design and Civic Engagement; and most recently, in 2022, at the “Design Incubator Conference “on Typographic Collaboration with CCS Communication Design students and the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. In the summer of 2024, Ms. LaPorte will present her collaborative work with Professor Chad Reichert at TypeCon 2024. The presentation, titled “ABBREVS: A Collaborative Amalgamation of Acronyms, Initialisms, Contractions, and Crasis,” will also be documented in a printed book.

In addition to her teaching, Ms. LaPorte has a keen interest in curatorial collaborations. Throughout her career as a professor, she has worked with various colleagues on exhibitions such as “Theoretical & Practical”; “A New Media Exhibition”; “Letterforms and Lexicons”; “Exhibit A: Evidence of Pleasure”; “Meeting: Business + Design”; “Revo-Evo Exhibition”; and “Mrs. Byrnes’ Family of Unusual, Obscure, & Preposterous Letters.”

Significant Publications, Presentations and Exhibitions

Presentations:

TypeCon 2024

Design Incubator Conference 2022

AICAD Citizen Designer Conference 2019

AIGA Design Educators Conference, Nuts & Bolts 2019

AIGA Design Educators Conference // RGD Design Educators Conference 2012

Publications:

Eye Magazine

Print Magazine

Communication Arts Magazine

Typography Now I

Type Design & Radical Innovations and Experimentation

Exhibitions

AIGA Get Out the Vote

In Cahoots Alumni Show

I Profess…Exhibition

20th Anniversary of “I Profess…Exhibition