Erik Evensen is an Associate Professor and director of the MFA program. His creative work, research, and teaching focus on the synthesis of illustration and visual communication design—his course load has included studio courses in design drawing, illustration, concept art, graphic design, and typography.
He began his career as a graphic designer and illustrator in the Boston area, with works honored by Graphic Design USA. As an illustrator, his comics industry credits include the "Ghostbusters" and "Back to the Future" comic series from IDW Publishing, and the Xeric-winning graphic novel "Gods of Asgard," the definitive comics adaptation of the Norse myths, which has been the subject of many academic papers and adopted as a textbook at several universities. He is also the game artist and co-producer for the tabletop games "Marrying Mr. Darcy" and "Distilled."
He has presented at and reviewed for academic conferences sponsored by the Design and Emotion Society, IASDR, MODE Summit, AIGA, the Congress of Medieval Studies, and the Polytechnic Summit. A student of Design Research pioneer Liz Sanders, Erik's academic research on educational board game design is a featured case study in her textbook, "Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design."
As Program Director for the MFA, Erik serves as the main point of contact and primary academic advisor for all students in the program, and provides leadership on issues related to curriculum, assessment, outreach, and development.
Teaching Interests: Visual Communication: Graphic design, illustration, sketching, digital rendering, concept visualization
Research Interests: Human-centered and interdisciplinary design methods, game design, comics & graphic novels, modern and historical illustration & visualization techniques
Professional Interests: Creative direction, graphic design, illustration, comics & graphic novels, design research & research visualization