The Design Lecture Series reflects the breadth and depth of practices taught across the Design Division's graduate and undergraduate programs. Each semester, we host a roster of creative thinkers and practitioners to expand our idea of what design is and what designers can do. Our program is a platform to explore the diversity of the field through the lens of both established and emerging voices.

For this final year, each event will feature alumni and faculty and serve as a gathering point for the extended community to celebrate the legacy and impact of design education at CCA.

MFA Design Chair, Professor Jon Sueda of Stripe, designed the graphic identity for the 2026–27 Design Lecture Series to celebrate CCA's history. He describes it this way:

“It's less a traditional identity and more an exhibition: I combed through CCA's vast digital archive to curate 120 images, each a snapshot from our institution's 120-year history. From our origins as the California Guild of Arts and Crafts, founded in 1907 with 43 students, to an unrealized 1965 vision for a futuristic Oakland campus—through three name changes, a pandemic, and the explosion of new design programs over the last quarter century—there are far more great images than any one story could hold. Subtitled 120 Years of..., this identity traces our division's 120 years of curiosity, wonder, rigor, craft, making, thinking, and creativity, told entirely through images.”

Please join us for one or all of these critical conversations.

Recordings from past Design Lecture Series can be accessed online on our CCA Youtube Channel

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