Design Lecture: Joe Marianek

Joe Marianek is a designer, educator, and founding principal at Small Stuff, a New York City-based design studio and collective focused on projects of social and cultural impact.

Small Stuff’s recent collaboration with MASS Design Group and the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) on the design for The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (a national memorial to victims of lynching), which opened in 2018, has been featured on the front page of The New York Times, and received extensive press from The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and CNN and design industry publications. Architecture critic Mark Lamster cited it as “the single greatest work of American architecture of the 21st century.… a place where abstraction, repetition, typography and procession are mobilized to produce an experience that is at once revelatory and heartbreaking.”

Prior to co-founding Small Stuff, Joe was an associate partner at Pentagram Design working with Michael Bierut and Paula Scher. He also worked at Apple as a design lead in the Marketing, Photo/Video, and Human Interface groups. Joe has worked with a diverse range of clients across almost every industry including Citi, Cleveland Clinic, Emerson Collective, EJI, GE, Harper Collins, Lincoln Center, MIT, Mohawk, Museum of Arts and Design, The New York Public Library, Other Half Brewing and the Rockefeller University.

Joe’s work has been recognized by the AIGA, ADC, D&AD, SEGD, 50 Books / 50 Covers, Communication Arts, and Graphis. In 2010 he received the ADC Young Gun award. His work with Small Stuff has been featured in many industry publications including Eye on Design and Slanted’s recent profile of New York design studios; his career was profiled on the podcast Design Matters with Debbie Millman. Joe is an adjunct faculty and critic in the department of graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design, and currently serves as President of AIGA NY.

Civic Square Building, Room 110

33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ

This lecture is presented as part of the Spring 2023 Design Lecture Series, free and open to all.