For over 15 years, AIGA Boston (The Professional Association for Design) and ICA Boston have collaborated to highlight the work of today’s leading designers and thinkers through this annual lecture series. Join this year’s speaker Louise Sandhaus, to hear about her many successful projects including her book on the history of California graphic design, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires, and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936-1986 and The People’s Graphic Design Archive. After a presentation on her recent projects, Sandhaus will be joined in conversation with designer and educator Doug Scott, artist and curator Anne Thompson, and designer and educator Ramon Tejada. 

Louise Sandhaus is a graphic designer and faculty at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). She is the founder and co-director of The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a crowd-sourced virtual archive that expands, diversifies, and preserves graphic design history. Her book on the history of California graphic design, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires, and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936-1986, was published in 2014 by Metropolis Books and Thames & Hudson. It received laudatory attention from The New York Times, The Guardian (London), and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others. In 2015, the book received the Palm D’argent from The International Art Book and Film Festival (FILAF). In 2019, A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer, co-written and designed with Kat Catmur, was published by Princeton Architectural Press and was the subject of a full-page LA Times article. Her design office, LSD (Louise Sandhaus Design), in partnership with Tim Durfee and Iris Regn, is renowned for its ground-breaking approach to art museum exhibition design, including shows for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA Hammer Museum, Center for Photography in New York, and others. 

Louise is a Letterform Archive board member, former American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) board member, former Chair of the AIGA Design Educators Community steering committee, an AIGA Los Angeles Fellow, and in 2017 was recognized with the Design Icon Award from Los Angeles Design Festival. In 2022 she was recognized for her contributions to the field of design with an AIGA medal.