Julie Mader-Meersman earned her MFA in Visual Communication Design from the University of Washington School of Art, Seattle in 1996. For four years following, she was the senior designer at Whittington & Company, a marketing and communications firm in Austin, Texas. There, she did design, art direction, and project management encompassing the entire creative process for editorial, informational, and commercial projects including corporate and institutional publications and collateral; magazines; identities; catalogues; annual reports; posters; billboards; newsletters; trade show exhibits; web sites; and self-promotional materials. After moving to Minnesota, she telecommuted for W&Co. before becoming Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Minnesota State University Moorhead in 2000. At MSUM, she also served as design coordinator for New Rivers Press, a non-profit literary small press. A native of Kentucky, in 2003, she began teaching in the visual communication design program at her undergraduate alma mater, Northern Kentucky University (BFA Graphic Design, 1993), where she is now a full professor. She has extensive freelance experience, having done work for clients spanning entrepreneurs to major corporations, universities to mid-sized companies, and nonprofit organizations. Her research areas include electronic and traditional forms of publication and book design, artist’s books, design history, design pedagogy, typography, graphic culture, information design, interaction design, sustainable design, web design, visible language systems, and women’s issues. As an extension of her love and interest in typography, publication/book design, creative processes and their impact, in her independent fine art, she produces mixed media works that focus on the definition and conveyance of meaning; personal narrative/experience; domestic life; the visual/physical properties of words and books; and the processes of recording, cataloging, mapping and documenting meaning and experience. Mader-Meersman’s art, designs, and research have been presented broadly, including in conferences, competitions, exhibitions, and publications. Design and research venues include: the Resurrecting the Book conference (Library of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK); The AIGA Head/Heart/Hand national conference (Minneapolis, MN); “Communication Arts Magazine;” “How Magazine;” AIGA/Cincinnati Origination Design Competition; “Teaching Graphic Design: Course Offerings and Class Projects from the Leading Undergraduate and Graduate Programs,” edited by Steven Heller; the AIGA/Minnesota Design Show of Excellence (Minneapolis, MN); the National Design Educator’s Exhibition (Stillwater, Ok); “Print Magazine;” and the gallery of NBBJ (Seattle, Wa). Art venues include: The Contemporary Arts Center (CIncinnati, Oh); The Carnegie Center for Visual and Performing Arts (Covington, Ky); “Masters: Collage,” edited by Randel Plowman; The Riffe Gallery of the Ohio Arts Council (Columbus, Oh); the Arts + Literature Laboratory Gallery (New Haven, CT); Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center (Cincinnati, Oh); Plains Art Museum (Fargo, ND); and in A/B/C: An Exhibition of Altered Books and Experimental Artists’ Books (University of Northampton, Northampton, UK). Artist’s books by Mader-Meersman are in the collections of: the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History & Culture (Duke University); the University of Oregon Design Library; and Sarah and Michelle Vance Waddell (private collection).