Bruce Mau


Bruce Mau is a Canadian designer and educator. He started as a graphic designer but later focused on architecture, art, museums, film, eco-environmental design, and conceptual philosophy. Mau serves as Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute in the Graduate Architecture & Urban Design department.
From 1985–2010, Mau was the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and in 2003, he founded the Institute Without Boundaries in collaboration with the School of Design at George Brown College, Toronto. In 2010 Mau went on to co-found The Massive Change Network in Chicago with Bisi Williams. In 2015, Freeman, a global provider of brand experiences, appointed him Chief Design Officer. Mau works with Freeman to drive innovation in the events industry.

Early life and education

Mau was born in Sudbury, Ontario on 25 October 1959. He attended Sudbury Secondary School. He studied at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, studied advertising under Terry Isles. But he left the school prior to graduation in order to join the Fifty Fingers design group in 1980.

Career

He stayed at Fifty Fingers for two years, before crossing the ocean for a brief sojourn at Pentagram in the UK. Returning to Toronto a year later, he became part of the founding triumvirate of Public Good Design and Communications. Soon after, the opportunity to design Zone 1/2 presented itself and he left to establish his own studio, Bruce Mau Design.
Zone 1/2: The Contemporary City, a complex compendium of critical thinking about urbanism from philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze and Paul Virilio, architects Rem Koolhaas and Christopher Alexander remains one of his most notable works. The firm has produced work for the Andy Warhol Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gagosian Gallery. Mau remained the design director of Zone Books until 2004, to which he has added duties as co-editor of Swerve Editions, a Zone imprint. From 1991 to 1993, he also served as creative director of I.D. magazine.
He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and served on the Herman Miller Design Council from 2008–2012.
He has lectured widely across North America and Europe. He served on the International Advisory Committee of the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1998, Mau produced a 43-point program called an "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" that attempts to help designers and creative folks think about their design process, the manifesto has been widely circulated on the web.
In 2006, he participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions.
In 2010 Bruce Mau and Bisi Williams founded the Massive Change Network.
In the 2010s, Bruce Mau Design was involved in the redevelopment and redesign of Ontario's ONroute service centres.
As of November 19, 2015, Bruce Mau is the Chief Design Officer for Freeman, a brand experience company and service contractor.

Awards

He was awarded the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation in 1998, and the Toronto Arts Award for Architecture and Design in 1999. He is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council, since 2006. Mau was awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts Metal in 2007. In 2007, Mau was in-residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Design Objects department.
He received the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Collab Design Excellence Award in 2015, in conjunction with an exhibition of his designs. Mau received the Cooper Hewitt 2016, National Design Award for Design Mind, for his impact on design theory, design practice and/or public awareness.

Honorary degrees

Mau has received many honorary degrees including honorary doctorates from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2001, School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 and Rhode Island School of Design in 2014. Other honorary degree include an honorary fellow of the Ontario College of Art & Design In 2007, Laurentian University awarded him an honorary degree and the Columbia College Chicago awarded an honorary degree in 2011.

Teaching

From 1996 to 1999, Mau was the Associate Cullinan Professor at Rice University's School of Architecture in Houston, Texas. He has also been a thesis advisor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design. He was a William and Stephanie Sick Distinguished Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 – 2008.

Fellowships

Since 2009, Mau has served as a Distinguished Fellow of the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University. He served as an artist-in-residence at California Institute of the Arts and as a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Personal life

Mau is married to Aiyemobisi "Bisi" Williams and they have three daughters named Osunkemi, Omalola, and Adeshola.

Graphic design