SDSU School of Art, Design, and Art History

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Susan Merritt's Biography

At Left: Professor Susan Merritt at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich, Switzerland, presenting her limited edition letterpress book from the collection of the Weingart Archive. July, 2011.

Susan Merritt is head of the Graphic Design Program in the School of Art, Design and Art History at San Diego State University (SDSU) where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Among her current areas of specialization are cross-cultural design, typography, and graphic design history, including the history of the book.

Professional Design Practice: Professor Merritt is a design principal of CWA, Inc. in San Diego, a strategic and creative development firm, where she is involved in a wide range of design projects, including print and onscreen design, and environmental graphic design. (www.cwaincsandiego.com)

Personal Creative Practice: Professor Merritt is recognized for her handcrafted, one-of-a-kind and limited-edition books, which she exhibits. Her books are in private and public collections, including Special Collections at Love Library, San Diego State University; the New York Public Library; the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University; and the Weingart Archive at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich, Switzerland. Her interest in type and letterpress printing led her to the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, where she did a one-month residency in 2003.

Author: Professor Merritt is coauthor, with Jack Davis, of The Web Design WOW! Book, which was published in 1998 by Peachpit Press, a division of Addison Wesley Longman. She is the author of the ancillary materials for Meggs'­ History of Graphic Design, which include an instructor'­s manual and student study guides, published by John Wiley & Sons.

Graduate Study: Professor Merritt was a graduate student at the Basel School of Design in Basel, Switzerland, where she studied with Armin Hofmann, Wolfgang Weingart, André Gürtler, and Kurt Hauert. While living in Europe for six years followed by five years in Hawaii, Professor Merritt developed a deep appreciation for different cultures and their communities. She continues to travel and research the role of visual communication design within the context of culture. Because of her strong interest in language, her work focuses heavily on typography.

Grants: Professor Merritt has received numerous travel and research grants. She was awarded two separate grants to study multilingual design: in 1995 to research multilingual design in Western Europe, and in 1996 to study multilingual design in Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan. In 2003, she was awarded a John and Jane Adams Humanities Grant to take five students on a Design Study Tour of Washington, D. C., and New York City. She was awarded faculty development grants in 2005, 2006, and 2007 to continue research in the history of graphic design at the Grolier Club Library and the American Type Founders (ATF) archive at Columbia University'­s Butler Library in New York; and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Professional Membership: Professor Merritt has served on the board of the San Diego chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), on the chapter's advisory board, education committee, and as curriculum director on AIGA's national Creativity Kits Project. She is founder of the AIGA Student Group at SDSU and served as faculty advisor for many years. She is a Friend of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) and a member of the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI).

Design Innovation Institute (Dii): Professor Merritt is a cofounder, with Calvin Woo, of the Design Innovation Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering awareness and appreciation of design as a way of enhancing and enriching life. (www.designinnovationinstitute.org)