International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month are a visible opportunity to celebrate the impact that women make in every discipline of design. It is also a time to acknowledge and challenge the disparity between the genders when it comes to wages, senior roles and representation. While MRU’s Information Design program graduates a predominantly-female workforce (as do many other design programs across the country), senior positions in art and creative direction, interface and interaction design, design education, and marketing are still male-dominated.
On March 28, we hosted a panel discussion exploring the gendered territory of Calgary’s design landscape. Our panelists shared the challenges they’ve faced as women in design today—and how they overcame them.
Check out this piece by The Calgary Journal’s Lexi Freehill on the event.
Panelists:
Angel Aubichon, Entrepreneur at Indi City
Susan Casement, Senior Design Specialist at United Way of Calgary and Area
Cecilia Humphrey, Creative Director at Creative Capture
Diane Mitchnick, Senior Programmer Analyst at The City of Calgary
Michelle Priest, Senior Manager, Business Innovation at ATB Financial
Chelsea Watson, Senior User Experience Designer at Evans Hunt
Presented by Dr. Milena Radzikowska, MDes, Associate Professor of Information Design, and the School of Communication Studies at MRU.
Five female designers took part in a workplace equality
panel at Mount Royal University. Photo by Lexi Freehill.