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Willamette University

Alumni & Opportunities

Our alumni go on to successful careers in top creative agencies such at Wieden+Kennedy and Instrument and major corporations such as Nike and Microsoft, while others launch their own creative agencies. Grads are also using the same skills that they'd use working for game-changing brands to work on design initiatives that can change the world: in media, art, music, and towards social change.

You'll prepare for life after PNCA with many opportunities to network in Portland's rich design communities and take on professional projects to build your portfolio.

Featured Alumni

Trung Bao ‘20

Trung Bao is a visual artist, internationally-recognized beatboxer, and is a member of the creative design studio Fustic.

Fustic. Studio is a future-forward creative collective originated from Vietnam. They combine design, technology, and motion graphics to tell inspiring stories across visual media and installation. Fustic. has worked with people and brands such as Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, Adidas, Adult Swim, Awkwafina, and Eric Andre.

Trung Bao is also the World Beatbox Camp Solo Champion, American Vice beatbox Champion 2016, and placed top 4 in the Grand Beatbox Battle 2017. Trung Bao started beatboxing in 2011 at 13 years old after his brother showed him a video of Rahzel performing at Red Bull BC One. He initially learned sounds by watching TyTe's video tutorials on Human Beatbox.

Trung Bao ‘20
Mallary Wilson ‘20

Mallary Wilson is a Graphic Designer and motion graphics fan living with her partner and cats in Portland, Oregon. She’s the current in-house graphic designer for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). Her heart is in design for music, whether it’s designing experiences or album covers and identities; as of 2021, she is also working on a really fun freelance job for independent Italian electronic music producers redesigning their identity and album covers.

Mallary Wilson ‘20
Steven Xue

Steven Xue is a designer specializing in brand, art direction, and creative strategy. Often concept-driven and art-adjacent, his work aims to embody clear executions of strong creative concepts that connect closely to the given context. Steven has worked with Nike, Uniqlo, Adobe, OMFGco, and a number of small independent brands. He is currently freelancing out of Auckland, New Zealand.

Read a Q+A with Steven from his time as a PNCA student, as part of our #FridayFives series where we talk with alumni, current students, faculty, and guest lecturers about their practice.

Steven Xue
Kara Haupt ‘15

Kara Haupt is the Senior Art Director at NBC News Digital, where she manages a team that creates the article artwork for nbcnews.com, today.com, and msnbc.com. Prior to NBC News, she art directed for The New Yorker online and was a Design Lead on the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Read a Q+A with Kara as part of our #FridayFives series, where we talk with alumni, current students, faculty, and guest lecturers about their practice.

Kara Haupt ‘15
Skylar Jessen ‘14

Skylar Jessen is a Design Director in NYC.

He has developed design direction, digital products, and interactive experiences for folks from UNICEF to T-Pain.

Skylar’s work has been recognized by Fast Co.’s Innovation by Design Awards and utilized by Grammy Award-winning artists, global companies, and underground art communities. His work now focuses on building equitable platforms and pieces of culture that support sustainable revenue for artists.

His studio is currently part of the Year 6/7 Cohort at NEW INC; the New Museum’s incubator for art, design, and technology.

Read a Q+A with Skylar as part of our #FridayFives series, where we talk with alumni, current students, faculty, and guest lecturers about their practice.

Skylar Jessen ‘14
Liz Meyer and Gavin Potenza ‘10

Liz Meyer and Gavin Potenza went on from PNCA to Type@Cooper, Cooper Union’s postgraduate program in typeface design. They worked together as Script & Seal, a design-minded illustration studio based in the Hudson Valley, New York until 2019, before co-founding Datalands with Leandro Castelao.

Datalands is an independent creative studio based in New York, helping brands find the shape of their stories at the intersection of art and science. Datalands excels at inspiring AND informing, distilling complex ideas, data and information into beautiful visualizations, unearthing meaning and wonder in exciting ways.

Together, their work has included illustration, branding, motion graphics, and data visualization for clients such as Herman Miller, Google, Nike, Lexus, Coca-Cola, AT&T, IBM, Starbucks, Legoland, XBOX, Facebook, and more.

Liz Meyer and Gavin Potenza ‘10

Careers

App Designer

Art Director

Brand Consultant

Brand Development Designer

Communications Director

Creative Director

Editorial Designer

Logo Designer

Marketing Specialist

Online Experience Designer

Product Designer

Social Media Design Director

Website Design Director

Opportunities

  • Center for Design

    Center for Design

    PNCA's Center for Design (affectionately called C4D) is a working, professional design studio operated by students with faculty mentorship as a safety net. Clients who engage with Center for Design fund production costs and partner with student creative teams on real projects. We meet with a range of art directors to supplement these experiences with a special focus on Design for Good, which helps students and clients alike learn the power of design to support personal values, create meaningful work, and drive change. Each member of our studio builds a strong portfolio, adds the studio job to their resume, and develops a working client list.

Willamette University

Graphic Design