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— 2020 45° 32’ 17.38” N
122° 40’ 18.715” W 23 alumni
920 days Today’s date:

Mallary
Wilson

graphic design
art direction
systems
indesign
photoshop
illustrator
typography
experimental
screen printing
multimedia
branding
music design

Mallary stands in dramatic lighting, with soft smile, turned to the right but looking at camera, with hands in her pockets.

I’m Mallary, a multidisciplinary graphic designer based in Portland, Oregon. I love design because it’s made for the physical word even if it’s created on a computer. Whether it’s an album cover, visuals for a touring musician, or a digital image someone sees on their phone, it’s not just being looked at, it’s being experienced. For me, design is a combination of problem solving, hands on artistic skills, modern technology, communication, impeccable details, enough cultural awareness to keep it relevant and enough unique perspective to start some trends as well.

Mallary stands in dramatic lighting, with soft smile, turned to the right but looking at camera, with hands in her pockets.
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Mallary stands in dramatic lighting, looking slightly up, face lit, smiling glance at camera, left hand on hip.
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Mallary stands in dramatic lighting, with soft smile, facing front and camera directly, with hands in her pockets.
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 Blue and red painterly image is collaged with torn paper edges into black and white, digital, retro looking poster design. Reads, 'Subterranean Light' in big type. Small text details the film showing at PNCA Mediatheque.

What is one thing you want to learn right now?

Mallary: One thing I want to learn right now is how to really level up my After Effects skills. It's one of those programs that has so much depth to it and so many different ways of working that it can be easy to plateau. When I do super advanced tutorials it always blows me away how little I actually know and how slow I am compared to a lot of professionals. I love motion graphics so it's always fun to figure out what you don't know and make a plan on how you can get better.

What advice would you give your former/younger self?

Mallary: Advice I would give to my younger self (and any young femme/non binary or gender conforming person) would definitely be to not doubt my work ethic and passion and not try to “play it like a man” in order to feel like I've been working hard enough. Working hard looks so different for everyone and I think we are trained to see it as one very specific, kind of detrimental, way of being. You can be really passionate and a total boss about multiple things including your personal life.

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One person's chaos is another person's order. Knowing what works for you and how you can effectively communicate it another person is a great skill.

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What is your favorite trick for “keeping it all together?”

Mallary: My favorite trick for keeping it all together is realizing that no one has their shit together in the same way. One person's chaos is another person's order. Knowing what works for you and how you can effectively communicate it another person is a great skill. As far as staying organized and managing my time I have a really strict folder naming system lol and when I first started designing I used timers A LOT. It helps you work fast but it also helps you work under pressure so when real deadlines come up it just feels like another timed exercise.

What are you obsessed with?

Mallary: What am I obsessed with? That tends to change but I love fancy vinyl when I an afford it. Usually the designs and packaging are just a good as the music. It's an expensive obsession though!

Cream colored, long-sleeve shirts with designs on a white background. Design printed onto shirts is a mix of expressive lettering, small technical-looking lettering, photo of blue sky, and digital glitch art in bright colors. Clean geometric shapes in black and white line the sleeve. Shirt shown from front and back. White, long-sleeve shirts with black, white, and yellow designs on a white background. Design printed onto shirts of hand lettering saying 'FEEL' layered over song lyrics and yellow bold type that says I’m not transformed like I thought I would be' and 'I feel everything and once and nothing at all. Drawn circle shapes in black, white, and yellow line the sleeve. Shirt shown from front and back. Black, long-sleeve shirts with white designs on a white background. Design printed onto shirts contains several circle shapes overlaying each other, looks like planets or orbits. Expressive marks line the sleeves. Shirt shown from front and back. Reads 'The Driving Song' with very small text. Peachy orange tie-dye, long sleeved shirts shown from front and back. Printed design reads 'Darling, love will wreck you' in black script and white shapes, small text of lyrics lines the sleeves. White, long-sleeve shirts shown from front and back with bold, wild, bright pink floral arrangement imagery extending from the bottom of shirts and halfway up the sleeves. An anatomical heart in red linework is on the right side of chest of shirt. Green script on one side reads 'through.' White, long-sleeve shirts with fresh pink and light green imagery and black linework. Hand lettering on one side reads 'Slow Bloom.' Other side has symmetrical pink tinted photo of floral arrangement centered on shirt. Heart is on sleeve, other geometric details in black line decorate shirt. Brand system poster for 'Art of Leadership' program shows photos of people interacting in creative work settings, bold, all-caps type design, and expressive and painterly marks making up a circular logo, in bright off-primary colors. Brand system poster for 'Art of Leadership' program shows details of markmaking system including monoprint textures, linework, color combinations in brights and neutrals, t-shirt and tote bag designs, and instagram post designs made from the mixed imagery. Large, yellow black and white, geometric poster design reads Design Lecture Series in small type, and artist named Na Kim in huge type. Shapes are pulled from Na Kim’s artwork, including large circle and delicate lines. Large, bright blue, black and white, geometric poster design reads Design Lecture Series in small type, and design firm named Actual Source in huge type. Shapes are pulled from some of their design work, including what looks like white lines of a topographical map, x shape, and black dots. Square, folded invitation design in black and silver, reads 'a spectacle of radical giving, community, and hospitality.' Square, unfolded invitation design in black ink on silver paper, with geometric shapes locked into patterns, and event details in flowy, modern serif type. Contrasting black design says 'meta gala' in larger type with some of the same patterns detailing in silver. Close up of meta gala black design, says 'reflections & revelations' (with revelations reflected upside down) in small type along with large 'meta gala'. Bright yellow book cover on black background, reads 'LIFT OFF' in very tall condensed all caps black text, and 'Launching the next generation of illustrators and designers, PNCA 2019' in small text. Interior spread of same book on black, design shows expressive pink and red and orange marks and a photo of Conor McBride jumping or dancing playfully, along with the illustrator’s biography. Interior spread of same book on black, design shows thoughtful looking portrait of Margie Rischiotto leaning over next to window, along with her name in bold text and biography. Her collage designs are bright yellow, pink, and purple, flowing into icy mountain scene, with summery figures walking and surfing on the shapes. Interior spread of same book on black, design shows irregular grid in black lines on white, with several illustrations by Molly Price featuring dogs, a child in a raincoat, a book cover for Watership Down. Interior spread of same book on black, design shows experimental photo portrait of artist and designer Steven Xue, manipulated so that part of it looks like it’s melting in black and white. His modern yellow book design features a cutout shape, and a quote from Steven reads, 'nobody actually knows the answer to anything, so a good question is your best bet.' Interior spread of same book on black, design shows a filmstrip of studio photos of several women moving around their spaces on the left, and a larger image on the right split between a woman peering over her hand on half and seated in a chair with light on the other half. Photo of same book, on a table in front of a mac computer monitor, showing a website that reads 'LIFTOFF' over black and white abstract constellation design.

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