Gail Swanlund is a contemporary graphic designer and writer who describes her work as living “at the intersection of real world practice of graphic design and design as art form, with a deep respect for natural and supernatural systems.” Swanlund was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1963. She lives and works in Los Angeles, moving within a community of graphic designers making “literate, intelligent work” such as Anne Burdick, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Jens Gehlhaar, Geoff Kaplan, Geoff McFetridge, Louise Sandhaus, Alexei Tylevich and Michael Worthington.
Swanlund has contributed to the influential experimental graphic design magazine Emigre as both writer and designer. She has also been a designer for the vanguard artist magazines Artpaper and RealLife, as well as the literary journal BlackClock. Her work is part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) permanent collection. Her creative work has been exhibited at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), CAM Raleigh, Pomona College, and at the Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno, Czech Republic.Her work has been acquired by many public collections, including Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Merrill C. Berman Collection, SFMoMA and LACE.
You can learn and apply the principles of graphic design towards a comprehensive branding project with her at the Graphic Design Specialization in Coursera.