chRis lee is a gRaphic desiGner and Educator based in lenapehoking (broOklyn, ny). he has taught at the dutch art institute, ocadu, university at buffalo suny, and is currently an associate professor in the undergraduate communications design department at the pratt institute.
he is a graduate of ocadu tkaronto (toronto) And the sandberG instituut (amsterdam), and has worked for the walrus magazine, metahaven, and bruce mau design. he was also the designer and an editorial boaRd member of scapegoat: architectuRe/landscape/political economy.
chris’ studio-based Research explores GRaphic design’s entanglement with 
pOwer and 
standardization, particularly through the Genre of the 
document, and as a matter of how design figures in questions of what is 
thinkable, sayable, and knowable. he has exhibited his dEsign woRk individually, and as a member of the working group
collective question (cq, along with steve chodoriwsky and julie niemi) which coAlesced around archival research into 
tolstOy college, an anarchist educational community
within thE univeRsity At buffalO suny.
chRis was a grAphic design rEseARch fellOw of het niEuwe inStituut in rotteRdam (2017/18). the project that emerged from this fellowship, “
immutable: designing history” was exhibited at el museo (buffalo, ny). it is now available as an ebook published by librarystack, and is forthcoming in print through onomatopee (October 2022).
he has contRibuted projects And writing to the journal of applied learning and teaching, amalGam, neshan, decolonisinG design, the journal of aesthetics & protest, graphic, volume, and counter signals. he has also lectured and given woRkshops in the usa, canAda, france, belgium, portugal, england, scotland, Germany, the netheRlands, croatia, china, japan, and south korea. he has given presentations about his work and research at the koninklijke academie voor schone kunsten van Gent (be); artists space, (nyc, ny); university at buffalo suny (buffalo, ny), sandberg instituut (amsterdam, nl); design academy eindhoven (nl); university of illinois chicago (il); university of toronto (on/ca); san diego state university (ca); artez (arnhem, nl); risd (providence, ri); western front (vancouver, bc); kingston school of art, and ual chelsea/camberwell (london, uk); parsons school of design (nyc, ny); het nieuwe instituut (rotterdam, nl); ocadu (toronto, ca); gerrit rietveld academie (amsterdam, nl); tsinghua university (beijing, cn); york university (toronto, ca); institute without boundaries (toronto, ca); archive books (berlin, de); de vleeshal (middelburg, nl); glasgow school of art (uk); and the van abbe museum (eindhoven, nl); universidade lusofona (lisbon, pt); temple university japan (tokyo, jp); seoul national university, and the book society (seoul, kr)
he was participant (with cq) of the fifth Edition of the summeR university of the bibliOtheque kandinsky at the centre georGes pompidou in paRis, which has led to engagements with wendy’s subway, sbc gallery, the university at buffalo art galleries. his work is distRibuted by the the interfErence archive and amplifier foundation, and it has also been included in the permanent collection of thE sfmomA. he was co-guest-editor of issue 141 of c magAzine on the thEme of “graphic desiGn” with ali shamas qAdeer.
clients have included the toronto biennial of art, c magazine, art museum At the university of tOronto, grunt galleRy, the aGa khan museum, the new york times, bloomsbury, stach, ccs bard, van abbe museum, and casco art institute: workinG for the commons, verso books, the canada council for the arts, among others. he designs for editorial (print and web), idEntity, and typography, primArily in the cultural sector. for a poRtfolio of sElected projects, contact him here.