Bruce Meader's Week of Lunchtime Lectures

Retired Rochester Institute of Technology Professor Bruce Ian Meader will lead five enlightening typography and graphic design experiences at the Vignelli Center for Design Studies each day during the week of March 27th over the lunch hour (bring your own). His interactive and informal talks will take place in the Helen Hamlyn Trust Study Room on Level 4 of the Vignelli Center. 

About Bruce Ian Meader

After a self-tailored study Visual and Verbal Communication in Graphic Design and Technical Writing at Carnegie Mellon University, Bruce Ian Meader began teaching graphic design in the School of Art at the University of Michigan in 1983. Ten years later, he began teaching typography and graphic design in the School of Design at Rochester Institute of Technology. He retired from RIT in 2019 as Professor Emeritus and moved to Abbott, Texas, to be with his daughter and his three grandchildren.

His specialty is typographic problem-solving, information design, publication design, and wayfinding design. After completing a major commission to redesign Michigan Bell’s telephone bill, which was adopted by 15 states in the U.S., he co-wrote an article, Redesigning a Telephone Bill, in the 1990 issue of Information Design Journal.

Meader played a major role in programmatic, academic, and administrative activities in the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT. He designed the interior wayfinding signage system, a mark of identity, and all publications and promotional materials for the Vignelli Center.

In 2013 he was invited to spend three weeks at Central South University in Changsha, China, to help develop an information design component for the CSU design curriculum. Meader directed 26 students for 3 projects that included document design, wayfinding, and mapping.

In Rochester, Meader, concurrent with full-time teaching, maintained an active practice for a range of consultations that includes designing identity systems, publications, and wayfinding systems. Clients included Kaleida Health in Buffalo, Monroe County Parks, Syracuse University, and Rochester Institute of Technology.

Meader designed numerous publications for RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Press: Bookbinding 200 Processings, Designer’s Guide to the RIT Design Archives & Special Collections, Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance, The American Image: U.S. Posters from the 19th to the 21st Century, and the Graphic Design Archives Chapbook Series (Lester Beall, Cipe Pineles, Will Burtin, Alvin Lustig). In 2012, Meader designed Vignelli Transit Maps, a book documenting the evolution of Massimo Vignelli’s NYC subway diagram from the earliest 1972 to the 2012 version. The book received an American Association of University Press (AAUP) 2013 design award.

In 2022, Professor Meader completed writing his book, The Typography Canon: A Guide to Fine Typography which hopefully will be published this year. In retirement, Meader collaborates regularly with his colleague and best friend, R. Roger Remington. His design of Professor Remington’s book, Communication Knowledge Visually: Will Burtin’s Scientific Approach to Information Design, received a 2022 AAUP design award.