Marc English Design

Bio

Step Inside Design magazine once called Marc English "the Johnny Cash of AIGA", referring to him as "teacher, preacher, shaman, showman." The 20th anniversary issue of HOW magazine listed him as one of "20 Designers We'd Like to Have a Beer With." He suggests the sentence should read " . . . With Whom We'd Like to Have a Beer."

According to the Austin Chronicle, "You might want to wear a welder's visor and some chain mail just to be on the safe side; in his hands, "design theory" is a radical, insurrectionist weapon. Joe Strummer would've dug this cat, but good. His identity both as a human being and an artist is XXL life. Austin filmmaker/writer Cary Roberts has rightly called him 'the Stanley Kubrick of design.' He fairly burns with passion for his life and work, and he wants you to burn, too. No sparks or embers here. English is a conflagration of design theory, overwhelming talent, and experimentalism, and his work meets at the dirty crossroads of the artistic truth of what has been entrusted to him and the bottom line, the movement of "product," the allure of the dream made true, at midnight, beneath a full moon, with pistols and blood well spent. His aim is truest. . ."

Yes, that is hyperbole at it's finest.

English studied design at Massachusetts College of Art, after a stint at the Berklee College of Music, where he studied composing, harmony and arranging. He began his career in Boston working for a number of studios on projects in communication design for Fortune 500 clients, broadcast design for ABC-TV's Boston affiliate, and creating museum exhibits for national and international clients, before opening his own studio in 1993, and later moving to Austin, Texas.His work can also be found in the collections of the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany, the Merrill C. Berman Collection, New York, and the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitano, Mexico City.

English has served as a director of the AIGA, and as president of both the Boston and Austin chapters. He founded both the Best of New England, the AIGA/Boston design exhibit, as well as AIGA/Austin's Design Ranch. He has served as a member of the Massachusetts College of Art National Alumni Council and sat on the board of directors of the Austin Film Society. Author of Designing Identity: Graphic Design As A Business Strategy, English has taught at the university level for more than two decades, in the U.S. and Mexico, and currently teaches graduate studies at the Academy of Art University, in San Francisco.

He's served as juror at the annual Pie Festival in Pie Town, New Mexico, ridden camels in the Sahara, almost died on the North Shore of Oahu, been chased through the jungles of he Yucatan after midnight, pulled in to dance the trance of 800-year old Sufi music in the foothills of Morocco, has slept in the rain under only a serape in Utopia, Texas, and the longest day he's spent on a motorcycle was 18 hours in the saddle. He continues to travel and lecture frequently and likes to read Homer in the original Greek.

As they say in Texas, it ain't braggin' if it's true. Most of the above is true.

Recognition

AIGA
AIGA 50 Books / 50 Covers
American Center for Design
American Advertising Federation
American Corporate Identity
Brand New
Broadcast Design Association
Communication Arts
Creative Club of Boston
F.P.O. Awards
Graphis
How
I.D.
International Typographic Design
New York Art Directors Club
New England Book Show
Print
Society of Publication Designers
Step Inside Design

Fingerprint: The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design,
Josh Chen, 2006.

Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work,”
Bryony Gomez-Palacio & Armin Vit, 2015.

Graphic Design America 2: The Work of Many of the Best & Brightest Design Firms From Across the United States,
Graphis, 2009.

Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World's Great Graphic Designers,
Steven Heller & Lita Talarico, 2010.

Inspirability: 40 Top Designers Speak Out About What Inspires,
Pash, 2005.

Collections