nicole killian appointed to Yale School of Art faculty in Graphic Design
nicole killian. Photo by Ethan Hickerson.
nicole killian (MFA 2D Design 2011) will join the faculty of the Yale School of Art as Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design beginning Fall 2026.
Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design and chair of the search committee at Yale, described killian as “a leading voice in contemporary pedagogy and curricular innovation” whose “openness to diverse research topics and experimental form fosters an environment of inquiry, criticality, and creative engagement.”
killian is a designer, publisher, and educator whose practice explores the overlaps between publishing, platforms, and pedagogy. Their approach considers objects as containers for language — activated when read, passed, held, and handled. Through their publishing initiative nico fontana, killian focuses on elevating queer and trans people while using publishing as an opportunity to gather. Their work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, CAVE, Arcadia Missa, and Sadie Halie Projects, and their writing has appeared in After the Bauhaus, Before the Internet: A History of Graphic Design Pedagogy, Amalgam, Overflow Journal, and Journal of Feminist Scholarship, among others.
Before coming to Yale, killian spent thirteen years at Virginia Commonwealth University teaching in Graphic Design and directing the MFA program. Past teaching appointments have also been held at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. They have been invited to speak at Typographics 2025, the Royal College of Art in London, the Estonian Academy of Arts, Central Saint Martins, the Rhode Island School of Design, and Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway.
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nicole killian Appointed to Yale School of Art Faculty in Graphic Design – Yale School of Art
