Join us on Thursday, October 29 at 11:30 am for a virtual Alumni Artist Talk featuring e bond '96 in conversation with Faculty Emerita of Graphic Design Gigi McGee. Together, they’ll explore bond's artistic evolution, the role Moore played in shaping her practice and the ideas driving her exhibition, Language Studies, on view in the Alumni Gallery September 19 – November 7, 2026.
Language Studies presents an exhibition of fabric collections and letterpress prints centered on typography and the written word. Drawing on two bodies of work, COUNTER and PUNC*T, the exhibition looks closely at letterforms and punctuation marks, elements of language we usually look through rather than at.
The COUNTER fabric collection examines the space surrounding and within letterforms, whether open or closed, narrow or wide. In typography, a counter refers to the area of a letter entirely or partially enclosed by a letterform or symbol, such as the enclosed space within a capital "O" or the partial opening at the top of a lowercase "e." Rather than treating this space as empty or incidental, the collection considers it a formal element in its own right. COUNTER is part of an ongoing series of fabric studies by bond that explore language, typography, letterforms, and the written word, developed from a series of letterpress monotypes made during a two-week residency at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in 2024.
PUNC*T is the sublimely disorderly companion to its predecessor. Made during the same 2024 residency as COUNTER, the collection explores punctuation, the marks that move language forward. Quotation marks, question marks, and exclamation points appear throughout, printed from the museum's wood type collection to reflect the range of ways we communicate on the page. These marks shape meaning and tone, carrying drama, expression, emotion, and intention.
After the program, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea and stay awhile for an informal alumni gathering. We’ll keep the Zoom room open for an additional 30 minutes to give alumni a chance to catch up and continue the conversation together.
About the Speakers
e bond '96 is a designer, artist, writer, bookbinder and educator. Currently, she teaches art workshops and creates fabric collections by day, makes handmade books by night, hangs out with trees on weekends and writes something close to poems in the spaces between. Under the studio name roughdrAftbooks, she makes one-of-a-kind artists’ books, printed pieces and abstract drawings that merge and blur the boundaries of art, craft, surface design and poetry.
e holds a BFA in Graphic Design and Art History from Moore College of Art & Design and an MFA in Creative Writing and Book Art from Mills College. She has spent years as a professor of Graphic Design and Book Art in various college and university art departments, and her work is held in library collections across the US. e’s work has been published in Pressing Matters Magazine, Uppercase Magazine, Berkeley Poetry Review, 500 Handmade Books, as well as numerous books (about books). Most recently, her work has moved into the wonderful world of surface design where she designs colorful, abstract fabric collections in collaboration with Free Spirit Fabrics. You can learn more at ebondwork.com or on Instagram as @eisroughdraft.
Gigi McGee has worked as a design professional and educator for over 30 years in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles. She is a Faculty Emerita of Graphic Design at Moore College of Art & Design, where she has taught for many years, and her teaching experience also includes California Institute of the Arts and Otis College of Art and Design. She enjoyed a diverse professional background including Seiniger Advertising, entertainment graphics; The Office of Richard Saul Wurman, information graphics; and Sussman/Prejza, environmental graphics, before opening her own studio in 1989.
She has served on the Executive Board of AIGA Philadelphia for a decade currently as Legacy Director, co-founding and overseeing the AIGA Philadelphia Scholarship Fund, and formerly as Co-Director of Education organizing many student-centered initiatives such as Feedback, the Mentorship Program, This is my Philly, and several student competitions and exhibitions including: Design for Good, 2015, BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag), 2010 and Campaign2Sustain, 2008. A native of Philadelphia and a graduate of University of the Arts, she is an active member of the local design community.
Image: Courtesy of the artist.
