Mike Tully explores the ways in which graphic design can serve different communities

The New York-based designer takes a conceptual approach to “reconsider” what design can be.

Date
19 October 2022

It was after studying undergraduate graphic design at Parsons in New York and working in small studios that designer Mike Tully found his “place” in editorial environments, like The New York Times and The Brooklyn Rail. In these spaces, Mike tells us that he learnt the “ways in which design, research, writing and dialogue can work together on larger scales in service of different communities". It’s this thinking that now forms the basis of Mike’s design approach.

Attending Yale’s MFA in graphic design was also a formative experience for Mike, and he explains that the course “reinforced that, while I love conceptual projects that reconsider what can be thought of as design, I’m still deeply invested in typography, structure and an instinctive process”. At Yale, Mike utilised the resources around him and explored the intersection of ephemerality and artefacts. As such, his designs incorporated screenings of Arthur Jafa films, maintaining a bootleg web radio server and sound recording projects. Showing a design practice so full of innovation and cultural experimentation, Mike clearly has an illustrious career ahead.

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Mike Tully: Retrospecta 44. Publication for Yale School of Architecture. Designed with Immanuel Yang (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021).

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Mike Tully: Retrospecta 44. Publication for Yale School of Architecture. Designed with Immanuel Yang (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021).

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Mike Tully: Retrospecta 44. Publication for Yale School of Architecture. Designed with Immanuel Yang (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021).

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Mike Tully: Community Memory (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2020)

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Mike Tully: Paprika! Volume 6, Issue 3: “A Field: To Seed or Not to Seed.” Designed with Jun Jung (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2020).

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Mike Tully: Aria Dean Yale Photo Visiting Artist Announcement Screensaver (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021)

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Mike Tully: AM Radio with Alvin Ashiatey (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021)

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Mike Tully: A Green Loop (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2022)

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Mike Tully: Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil Screening Flyers for the Yale Film Archive (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021)

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Mike Tully: Nico Wheadon Lecture Announcement (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2020)

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Mike Tully: “On Community Memory” for Are.na Annual 2022 (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2022)

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Mike Tully: Arthur Jafa’s The White Album Screening Poster (Copyright © Mike Tully, 2021)

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About the Author

Olivia Hingley

Olivia (she/her) joined the It’s Nice That team as an editorial assistant in November 2021 and soon became staff writer. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh with a degree in English Literature and History, she’s particularly interested in photography, publications and type design.

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