Elizabeth Meggs

Essayist / Writer; Designer; Educator; Artist; Illustrator / United States / Pratt Institute

www.elizabethmeggs.com / Twitter and Instagram: @elizabethmeggs

Profile

Elizabeth Meggs is a Brooklyn-based artist, illustrator, writer, and designer, whose most recent work includes paintings, photography, imagery for children, and hand-bound artist books. She graduated summa cum laude with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and received her MFA in painting from Pratt Institute. She has worked as a graphic designer at Hearst’s Victoria Magazine, as a writer at the Los Angeles Daily News, at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, as a faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University, and now as a faculty member at Pratt Institute and New York City College of Technology.

Exhibitions include Sweet Lorraine Gallery, ISE Cultural Foundation, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Mariner’s Museum, Firehouse Art Collective, Anderson Gallery, Target Gallery at the Torpedo Factory, Galapagos Art Space, Edward Hopper House, Pratt Institute Dean's Gallery, “Go Brooklyn!” with the Brooklyn Museum, and Gravity Racers at Pierogi Gallery, among others.

Her essay about life with her father, graphic design historian Philip B. Meggs, titled “Life By Design: From Ephemeral to Historical,” was published in the book Meggs: Making Graphic Design History. Recent publications include essay contributions to Practice Makes Perfect: A Graphic Design Student’s Guide to Freelance; and writing and photography for TRUEQUE, a collaborative artists’ book project between artists in Copenhagen, Mexico City, Berlin, London, New York, and Rio de Janeiro.

Awards and honors include being selected to attend New York’s Center for Book Arts’ Letterpress Printing & Fine Press Publishing Seminar for Emerging Writers; recipient of a Mellon Grant; recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship for Drawing in the State of Virginia; serving on the Leadership Council of the Pratt Artists’ League; and as president of the Virginia Commonwealth University Illustrator's Club.

Meggs is a member of SCBWI (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), The Daguerreian Society, The Typophiles, College Art Association, and The Visual Lunacy Society. She is on the Advisory Board At Large for Black Gotham, which celebrates the underrepresented history of the African Diaspora in New York City, through walking tours, graphic novels, teen programs, and more.

“Troco Rio,” a sound installation, including her piece titled Stand Clear, was recently played in the street markets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As part of the New York City Sing for Hope public pianos program, a piano she designed, painted, and named “Octavia Upright,” was placed outdoors in Manhattan in Hudson River Park in Chelsea and the Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center for the public to play.

Contributed Articles

Archives & Libraries

The Library of Philip B. Meggs & Libby Phillips Meggs

By Elizabeth Meggs May 30, 2017

Designer and design history educator Elizabeth Meggs selects 16 books from the library of her father—the pioneering graphic design historian Philip B. Meggs (d. 2002) who authored the landmark Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, recently updated in a sixth edition—and her mother, art director and writer/illustrator Libby Phillips Meggs.

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Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

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Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

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