As of this August, Santiago Piedrafita is Chair of the Department of Graphic Design at NC State University. Previously, Piedrafita chaired the Design Department at MCAD, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, teaching design at both undergraduate and graduate levels. This year, Piedrafita was named to the prestigious I.D. Forty, The International Design Magazine’s annual list of 40 top designers, architects and visual professionals from around the globe. The honor was recognized in the January/February edition of the publication.

Before joining MCAD, Piedrafita was Senior Designer at the Walker Art Center’s Design Department, having worked with both present and former Design Directors Andrew Blauvelt and Laurie Haycock-Makela, respectively. At the Walker, Piedrafita designed and maintained a diverse array of communications materials and publications for the museum’s multi-disciplinary curatorial and institutional departments. In New York, Piedrafita worked in studios such as the Museum of Modern Art’s in-house Design Department, J. Abbott Miller’s Design/Writing/Research (transitioning to become Pentagram) and Chermayeff & Geismar Inc. (now C&G Partners and Chermayeff & Geismar Studio).

Santiago Piedrafita’s work has been featured in numerous publications including Eye, Graphis, Metropolis, and I.D. magazines and has received recognition and awards from the former American Center for Design, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and once again, I.D. and Communications Arts. He holds a Master’s Degree in Communications Design from Pratt Institute in New York and a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design from ESDI, College of Industrial Design, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

September 2006