Before Design was Digital // Analog Processes in Graphic Design
Workshop overview
Cost: $55 before March 31 ; $65 after March 31
Ages 18+, limited to 20 participants
Analog production methods shaped graphic design for generations, influencing both aesthetics and workflow. This workshop begins with an examination of analog graphic design production, drawing from Briar Levit’s research and her documentary Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production. Participants will explore how mid-century through late twentieth-century processes influenced layout, design, and visual communication.
Participants will then engage in a hands-on exploration of these methods, using copy galleys, Letraset, grids, and other analog materials to build a print layout. Briar Levit (PSU Professor of Graphic Design) and Michael Ellsworth (design studio Civilization’s Creative Director and Designer) will guide the process, emphasizing composition, typography, and material awareness.
No experience is required. Participants will leave with a completed layout and a practical understanding of analog graphic design techniques.
Why join? Ideal for designers, artists, and creatives drawn to print, process, and material-based making, this workshop offers a focused introduction to the craft and discipline of analog graphic design.
Join us for a companion screening event at PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater for the film Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production, April 9, 2026 at 7 p.m. A panel discussion with Briar Levit & Michael Ellsworth will follow the film.
About the teaching artists
Briar Levit is a professor of graphic design at Portland State University in Oregon, USA. Levit’s feature-length documentary, Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production, tells the story of how production technologies and workflows informed graphic design from the analog mid-century to the Digital Revolution at the end of the 20th century. She edited Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History(2021), which includes the research of 19 scholars including herself.
Currently, Levit co-directs The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a crowd-sourced digital archive with an aim to help create more inclusive and participatory design histories.
Michael Ellsworth is a designer, creative director, and co-founder of the design studio Civilization. His work is grounded in design for advocacy and advocating for design, examining how visual communication functions as a civic and cultural force that shapes public understanding and participation. Under his leadership, Civilization has received the National Design Award for Communication Design from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, along with honors from the Webby Awards and the Anthem Awards.
Through his studio, teaching, and public programming, Ellsworth connects design history, contemporary practice, and the broader public as the founder of Volumes Design Library and an educator at Portland State University, where he supports the student-run Kemeny Design Lecture Series.
