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Mary Y. Yang is a designer and educator based in Boston, MA. She is the founder of Open Rehearsal, a design studio that collaborates with cultural and educational clients on research and projects spanning brand identities, exhibition graphics, book design, environmental graphics, and editorial design. Her work has been recognized by Communication Arts and featured in AIGA, PRINT Magazine, Society of Typographic Arts, Design360°, and Hyperallergic. She has been named as one of Graphic Design USA’s 2026 People to Watch.
Yang is an Assistant Professor at Boston University, where she teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate Graphic Design programs. Her research and pedagogical approach examine how language can be used as a tool for multilingual exchange, co-building history, embodied learning, and cultivating spaces for collective knowledge. She is currently the 2025–2026 Artist-Writer-in-Residence at Johns Hopkins University’s University Writing Program. In addition to her role as an educator, Yang is the co-founder of Radical Characters, an educational and curatorial platform that researches and explores graphic design, typography, and culture through Hanzi (Chinese characters).
Yang holds an MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Communication Design from Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. She has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and lectured at the University of Washington. Previously, she has worked on the graphic and brand design team at Victoria’s Secret PINK (NYC), the University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA) and Studio Blue (Chicago, IL).
Entr’acte
An open rehearsal and performance at the RISD Museum exploring narrative soundscapes. Visitors were invited to participate in creating connections between the art and space in Intermission using sound gestures to activate the viewing experience.
Commissioned by: RISD Museum for the Spring 2017 public programming
Published on: RISD Museum’s Manual
Presented at: The Royal Musical Association Study Day on Music and Space as part of the Manchester Theatre in Sound Festival of Electroacoustic Music, University of Manchester, UK
Special thanks: All participants, Deborah Clemons, Lake Buckley, Angela Lorenzo, Boyang Xia, and Minryung Son
Rhode Island School of Design
Graphic Design MFA Thesis
7.25 × 10 in, 310 pages, saddle stitch thread, digital printing, 2017
Design Syncopations is an inquiry into space and intervention. My thesis work at RISD explored the relationship between design and music. This book contains a sequence of work, writing, conversations, and experiences—a syncopation of attitudes towards design’s role in a range of spaces. The design of the book reflects the structure of a mechanical metronome, as indicated by the lines representing pendulum swings that appear throughout the book as a time keeping device.
External Critic: Sarah Hromack
Interviews: Peter Mendelsund, Hannah Chan-Hartley, and Alisa Wolfson
To See Is to Hear: Visualizing Music
Multi-screen projections installation with video and sound. A graphic system that reflects the experience of listening to a piece of piano music. This video and installation piece presents graphic explorations of three contrasting piano pieces that are translated using a set of visual rules and relationships based on the original music score. It exists as multi-screen projections with accompanying videos that the viewer can listen to with headphones. A pamphlet with explanations of the graphic system accompanied the viewing experiences. The graphic system is designed by assigning quantitative notations to musical characteristics such as key signature, note value, tempo, and dynamics from the score. Qualitative notations are assigned to musical characteristics based on existing performance recordings, which reflect a more subjective and expressive interpretation by the pianist. Each note is represented by a shape and each complete video frame represents a measure of music from the score. Notes appear in the sequence in which they are played.
RISD Grad Show 2017
Identity system for the RISD Grad Show 2017 thesis exhibition for the 256 graduate students. The system was applied to a range of formats including: a website, various-sized posters, web buttons, print ads, digital ads, bus banner, social media, and animated gifs.
Identity system for the RISD Grad Show 2017 thesis exhibition for the 256 graduate students. The system was applied to a range of formats including: a website, various-sized posters, web buttons, print ads, digital ads, bus banner, social media, and animated gifs.
Collaborators:
Cem Eskinazi
Work-Shop
Typeface: Univers
Featured:
Graphic Design USA
Fonts In Use
TypeWolf
Cem Eskinazi
Work-Shop
Typeface: Univers
Featured:
Graphic Design USA
Fonts In Use
TypeWolf
v.1: A RISD Grad Journal
The publication revives a tradition of student publications at RISD and established an interdisciplinary community of conversation. Designed in collaboration with Diane Lee, James Chae, and Prin Limphongpand.
Contributors: Ala Tannir, Emily Grego, Jillian Suzanne, Paul Rouphail, Jagdeep Raina, Diane Lee, Drew Litowitz and Edek Sher, Mary Yang, Tristram Lansdowne, Nick Missel and Thalassa Raasch, Maggie Hazen, Rosalind Breen, Chris Goodale, Lisa J. Maione, Feiyi Bie, Sakura Kelley and Daniel Morgan, Hannah Bigeleisen, Caleb Churchill, Melissa Weiss, James Chae, Maggie Hazen and Tristram Lansdowne, Anne West, and Reya Sehgal
Editoral direction by Jen Liese. Curated, edited, and authored by the graduate students from the RISD graduate class of 2016.
Printer: Puritan Press in NH
View full book here
ROI: Return on Investment
RISD Graphic Design Commons in the Design Center
December 8, 2015 – January 7, 2016
Group exhibition exploring what it means to learn, practice, and perform art and design in the cycle of creative capital.
Under guidance of Jiminie Ha and Cyril Duval.
Live-performance and video. Workshop with Luna Maurer of Studio Moniker in collaboration with Lake Buckley and Drew Litowitz.
Victoria’s Secret PINK
Seasonal graphics, patterns, and brand strategy for product sets and packaging.
Seasonal graphics, patterns, and brand strategy for product sets and packaging.
Limited Release series brand identity system
Lead graphic designer for PINK’s Sport identity system. The mark, signaling PINK’s higher price point collection, combines the PINK logo with the heritage dot pattern overlaying a perforated, sport mesh print. 1, 2 and 3-color marks applied as 1 or 2 hits on apparel and product. Color blocking is an option for introducing a pop of color on non-black backgrounds.
Designed under direction of Matt Sohl, Stefan Pearson, and Deena Suh.
Krannert Art Museum
Fall 2013 print materials and brochures designed for Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Worked on at Studio Blue.