a podcast about design history

about the show

History is, by nature, never “complete” and almost always a little messy. New information pops up every day that changes or challenges our understanding and interpretations of it. We want to expand our knowledge of graphic design history and really dig into the stories. We believe that differences are strengths, so we want to be inclusive, not only of people but of ideas and technologies that make the history of graphic design so rich. Our mission with the Incomplete Design History podcast is to explore the overlooked, underrepresented, or ignored areas of graphic design history, tell those stories, and make graphic design history a little less Incomplete.

your host

Mandy became interested in graphic design history while studying graphic design at Oklahoma State University. After graduation she took a year off to work at a dude ranch in Colorado and contemplate life. She decided she wasn’t done with school just yet and immersed herself in graphic design history. MFA in hand, she is now a professor of graphic design at the University of Central Oklahoma where she teaches design theory, criticism, and history of graphic design and is the director of the design history minor.

The idea for the Incomplete Design History podcast came from Mandy’s interest in researching the stories and histories outside of the ‘official’ design canon for class, and her desire to share these stories beyond the classroom.

Mandy is a feminist who lives in Oklahoma with a deaf dog named Solo, who is a (retired) certified therapy dog, two cats Rocky and Gypsy, who are certified for nothing, and wishes she lived closer to her two horses Rambo and Bogie. In her free time she likes to ride horses, go to the dog park, work in the garden and read all the books. For stress relief she likes to practice hand lettering and calligraphy techniques and has an obsession with buying pens.

guest host (season 5)

Ela Egidy is a typographer, designer, and researcher. She works as a Lecturer in Design at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she is also a PhD candidate. Her research emphasises critical feminist perspectives to study typography in its varied forms. Her research areas span commodity feminism and the fetishisation of language, design’s relationship to control and dissent, and sixteenth-century bibliography. Her PhD is a historico-theoretical enquiry into the prototypographic practices of nuns working in early modern Italy. Though these areas may seem disparate, they are connected by an unyielding fascination with the materialities of language and their socio-political implications.

Ela also works as a publication designer and sometimes exhibition designer under the collaborative guise of eetm.xyz, collaborating with artists and cultural institutions. As guest host for Season 5, she presents the story of the Convertite nuns of Venice, reframing their printing practice as a form of embodied typographic labour. Through a feminist reading, she explores how their work negotiated enclosure, institutional control, and gendered forms of penitent labour. This reading offers a view of typography as a means through which these women remade themselves, inscribing new identities through the physical and devotional act of printing.

guest host (season 4)

Sam Washburn is a certifiable obsessive when it comes to illustration history. An image maker by training and an educator by passion, Sam works out of a studio in Oklahoma making illustrations for a variety of clients including newspapers, magazines, advertising, and publishing. His work has been recognized by The Society of Illustrators New York, The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles, Communication Arts, American Illustration, and CMYK. When he's not drawing pictures or pouring over obscure design documents he teaches full time at the University of Central Oklahoma, where he is an Associate Professor of Design.

At the invitation and encouragement of Professor Mandy Horton, Sam took over The Incomplet Design History Podcast for Season 4, dubbing the venture “The Illustration Files”.

Sam has no free time but does enjoy the occasional horror movie, graphic novel, or fighting video game session when the stars align.

our team