Vignelli Center Lecture: Vicki Matranga

Lecture title: "Chicago Product Design History"

Vicki Matranga is an historian, publicist, and researcher specializing in US product design. In a dual career, she works for a major trade association to promote design and is an independent museum consultant, author, lecturer and researcher.

Vicki has been Design Programs Coordinator for the International Housewares Association (IHA) since 1992. There she manages IHA's Student Design Competition and the Housewares Design Awards, coordinates displays and organizes the Design Theater and design-related events for the annual International Home+ Housewares Show.

Matranga consults with museums: Art Institute of Chicago, Toledo Museum of Art, the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, and Schenectady Museum in New York. For Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, she developed content for three exhibitions in the annual Black Creativity program, including the 2007 Designs For Life program that featured 45 African-American product designers. Since 2007 she has been the curator of the Culinary Curiosity exhibition about antique food preparation tools at the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago.