Elizabeth Resnick is Professor Emerita and former chair of the Graphic Design program at MassArt (now Communication Design). She joined MassArt as a part-time faculty member in 1977 and was promoted to full-time tenure track in 1999. She later served as chair of the Graphic Design Department before being named professor emerita. Her teaching emphasized conceptual problem-solving, typography, and socially engaged design.

Curatorial Projects

She is a passionate design curator who has organized seven comprehensive design exhibitions, the last four centered on contemporary socio-political poster design:

• Within/Without: The Art of Russell Mills (with Teresa Flavin, 1991)
• Dutch Graphic Design: 1918–1945 (with Alston Purvis, 1994)
• The Art of the Poster: Makoto Saito (with Jan Kubasiewicz, 1999)
• The Graphic Imperative: International Posters of Peace, Social Justice and The Environment 1965–2005 with Chaz Maviyane-Davies and Frank Baseman (2005)
• Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010 with Javier Cortés (2010)
• Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age: 2001–2012 (2012)

Her most recent exhibition, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: International Posters on Gender-based Inequality, Violence and Discrimination (2016) investigates gender-based inequalities deeply entrenched in every global society. This exhibition premiered at MassArt and travelled internationally.

Industry Experience

Elizabeth Resnick Design operated in Boston from 1973 to 2003. Her clients included Ciba Corning Diagnostics Corporation, Art New England, Store 24, the Animal Rescue League of Boston, MIT, Little Brown Publishers, Troubadour, Inc., AIGA Boston, and Massachusetts College of Art abd Design.

 

Publications

Resnick’s publications include full color exhibition catalogs for the 4 poster exhibitions mentioned above.

• The Social Design Reader (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019)
• Developing Citizen Designers (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016)
• Design for Communication: Conceptual Graphic Design Basics (John Wiley & Sons Publishers, 2003)
• Graphic Design: A Problem-Solving Approach to Visual Communication (Prentice-Hall Publications, 1984)

Articles and blog posts written about Professor Resnick’s projects:

• EYE 98, The Enigma Thérèse Moll, 2019.
• Design Issues, Basel to Boston: An Itinerary for Modernist Typography in America, co-authors: Robert Wiesenberger, Elizabeth Resnick, 2018.
• EYE Blog – Human rights by any other name — review of Women’s Rights Are Human Rights poster exhibition, written by Marika Preziuso, MassArt, 2016.
• Printmag, Posters and Human Rights, Steven Heller, 2016.
• graphicart-news.com, Elizabeth Resnick speaks about her poster exhibition ‘Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, with Maria Papaefstathiou, 2016.
• Baseline Magazine, Visual Cultures Across the Pond with Scott Bakal, 2014.
• Printmag, Graphic Advocacy Takes a Stand, Steven Heller, 2013.

Professor Resnick has presented lectures and workshops in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Korea, Mexico, China, Poland and Bolivia.

Awards

In November 2007, she received the AIGA Boston Fellows Award. In October 2025, she was awarded the AIGA Medal in recognition of her achievements during her decades-long career as an educator, curator, and author, which has redefined design pedagogy and amplified underrepresented voices in the global design canon.