Jason
Alejandro



Jason Alejandro is a Puerto Rican graphic designer and educator based between New York City and Philadelphia. He is currently Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the College of New Jersey. Jason’s work examines, addresses, and questions aspects of cultural identity, design history, professional practice, and critical pedagogy through research, making, and writing. More info︎︎︎

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Jason Alejandro is a Puerto Rican graphic designer and educator based between New York City and Philadelphia. He is currently Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the College of New Jersey. Jason’s work examines, addresses, and questions aspects of cultural identity, design history, professional practice and critical pedagogy through research, making, and writing. More info︎︎︎

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Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
are.na
WNW
Almanque: A Collaborative Approach to Design Research & Puerto Rican Identity
with Laura Rossi Garcia

Paper presented at the 2021 Design History Conference: Memory Full? for the panel session Imagining Other Futures: Historical Interrogation and Radical Publishing, chaired by Aggie Toppins.

Panelists:
Jessica Barness
Paul Soullelis
Laura Rossi García
Jason Alejandro

Abstract:
Almanaque looks to Puerto Rico’s past, fraught with imperialist abuses of colonization, in tandem with its rich cultural heritage as a means for examining its design history. Data for the project was gathered from a variety of sources such as: original DIVEDCO publications (Libros para el pueblo), first-person interviews, and visits to archives. In this manner, the project uses the language of graphic design as the entry point for continued conversations about the island’s future. This approach to re-framing histories has largely informed aspects of more recent research projects by both of the project’s creators. These works, including explorations of typography, identity, language, labor, and motherhood, seek to develop new practices aimed at rethinking design’s role in society, both as a pedagogical tool and as a critical instrument for amplifying marginalized voices.
Sep 2021