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Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo

Professor
Faculty Affiliate, UM Department of Afroamerican and African Studies

Contact

Photograph of Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo

Biography

Curriculum Vitae
  • M.F.A., University of Michigan, 1987
  • B.A., Dickinson College, 1984

Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo is a designer, educator, writer and curator on design. His professional work and teaching includes publication, interface, and exhibition design, as well as writing about design, and is often a collaboration that finds form that grows out of content. It is about both product and process thus; the very subject of his work is the designer’s process of finding, taking, elevating, and sharing the solutions with the public. His quest for problem seeking and problem solving centers on matching form and content to meaning, and the consideration of language and imagery as communication devices. He is invested in the melding of the ‘what’ into the ‘how’, allowing the medium to become both the message and the messenger. His practice also foregrounds the interlinking of construction/composition with contemplation.

Nunoo-Quarcoo’s multi-disciplinary work has been recognized, exhibited and is represented in the permanent collections of museums, archives and libraries, most notably the American Institute of Graphic Arts Design Archives; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; the American Association of Museums; The Denver Art Museum; and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Design and Rare Book Collections. His latest publication is Paul Rand: Modernist Design. He curated the exhibition, and co-authored with Cynthia Wayne the publication of the same title, Word+ Image: Swiss Poster Design, 1955-1997. He also curated the exhibition and authored the publication Bruno Monguzzi: A Designer’s Perspective. Currently, he is curating an exhibition with Emily Wilson titled Paul Rand: Modernist Design and preparing his next book, Rudolph deHarak: An American Designer.