An Interview by Alexandra Oehmke
Why Baltimore? is a series of interviews focused on arts leaders in the Baltimore region, exploring how their practices engage with Baltimore as an audience. For this interview I spoke with Jennifer Cole Phillips, Co-Director of MICA’s MFA in Graphic Design program with Ellen Lupton.
Each year Jennifer leads a design project with the program’s first year students to address changing social issues. Her belief that design can make the world better motivates Jennifer to include the social design unit in the curriculum. This year the project centered around puberty education for girls in Baltimore City. Jennifer and her class gave visual direction to the Growing Girls Project, an initiative based on the research of Johns Hopkins University doctoral student Anne Herbert.
Designed by Daniel Frumhoff, Gurleen Kaur, Marina Guthmann, Yinan Wang under the guidance of Jennifer Cole Phillips and Jason Mathews Gottlieb, Pet Me is an interactive app that teaches girls about their bodies through promoting discovery, exploration, protection, and self-esteem.
