Alan Caballero LaZare

Alan Caballero LaZare is a Colombian American graphic designer, artist, educator, and researcher. 

Alan began his career as a graphic designer at the renowned architecture and design firm Michael Graves where he played an important role in designing packaging for the revolutionary Michael Graves / Drive Medical partnership of assisted living products as well as for the Target / Michael Graves partnership. He also was part of the team that redesigned the Wyndham Hotel and Resorts brand.

After leaving Michael Graves, Alan attended the Rutgers University MFA program. In response to his research on the rise in the number of international border walls being built, his performance Tow at White Box in New York City illustrated our propensity as human beings to create division amongst ourselves by weaponizing religion, sexual preference, skin color, nationalism, and country of origin instead of finding ways to coexist with one another.

As an ongoing project, Alan utilizes the technology from MyHeritage to create virtual memorials for people who are symbolic of social justice who have recently passed away or have been murdered by police.

In 2019, a family friend, Ines, was tasked with improving a children’s school in Flores, a small pueblo about an hour away from where Alan’s family lives in the northern part of Colombia. 

Ines has been a school teacher for 20 years in Colombia. Flores is similar to other small pueblos scattered across the country which are below the poverty line with no funding for basic services. Alan, along with Ines’ daughter Mary, started to help Ines by purchasing supplies for the school and for the children. Alan recently designed a logo for the school that will be placed on T-shirts that can be sold to help fund the school. Additionally, the new logo can be placed on the student’s new uniforms to bring the children a sense of belonging with pride and joy.

Alan is currently researching how graphic design is used by other graphic design practitioners to help uplift communities. He plans on documenting his findings in a book to be published once it is completed. 

Before joining Mason, Alan was an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, TN where he instituted an anti-racist, inclusive Graphic Design curriculum as well as restructured and updated the curriculum so it aligned with contemporary graphic design discourse, practice, and education.

Degrees:

• MFA, Rutgers University
• BFA, Pratt Institute

Specialist Areas:

• Alternative Design Practices
• Branding
• Graphic Design and Race 
• Inclusive Design
• Research Methodologies
• Typography