Michèle Champagne,
M.Des,

Recherche, Graphisme,
Etcetera,

Montréal,
Mail,
Michhham,
+1 647 834 1507

Michèle est chercheuse et graphiste,

Elle dessine des
méandres,

entre la recherche culturelle et le graphisme à travers les médias. Observatrice de la culture visuelle de l’art, du design et de l’architecture, elle mène des recherches sur la rhétorique positive et l’industrie du bonheur, envisagés comme des formes de surveillance numérique. Elle a écrit sur Sidewalk Labs, les villes privées et la reconnaissance des émotions pour Back Office, C Magazine et The Gradient, une publication du Walker Art Center, ainsi que pour Volume et Failed Architecture à Amsterdam.

Michèle ouvre des pistes de recherche et crée des textes, des écoles, des livres, des magazines, des sites Web et des beaux draps littéraires. Elle a collaboré avec Artexte, Centre pour les droits numériques, Droog, la revue Estuaire, Mediamatic, Metahaven, Penguin Random House Canada, Institut Strelka et VPRO, un diffuseur public néerlandais. Sa refonte de la revue Hazlitt pour Penguin s’est vu décerneé, en 2015, le Prix du magazine canadien de site Web de l’année.

Diplômée en design de l’Institut Sandberg aux Pays-Bas, elle a été professeure invitée à l’École de design à l’Université du Québec à Montréal et conférencière invitée à l’École supérieure de design à l’Université Harvard.

Michèle is a researcher and graphic artist,

She meandres
between,

cultural research and graphic art across media. A keen observer of visual culture in art, design and architecture, she studies positive rhetoric and the happiness industry as forms of digital surveillance. She writes about Sidewalk Labs, private towns and emotion recognition for Back Office, C Magazine and The Gradient published by Walker Art Center, as well as Volume and Failed Architecture in Amsterdam.

Michèle creates research expeditions as well as texts, books, magazines, websites, and curious literary beds. She’s worked with Artexte, Centre for Digital Rights, Droog, Estuaire journal, Mediamatic, Metahaven, Penguin Random House Canada, Strelka Institute, and VPRO, a Dutch public broadcaster. Her redesign of Hazlitt magazine for Penguin won the 2015 National Magazine Award for Website of the Year.

She has a Master of Design from Sandberg Instituut in the Netherlands, and has been guest teacher at School of Design at University of Quebec in Montreal and guest lecturer at Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Select,

Projects,

Slack smiles,

And solo spacing,

“A Solo Space for All to See” – Health tracking and emotion recognition in the home are things that pandemic peril and Google Urbanism are slated to exacerbate. What happens when digital surveillance becomes “good” for you, so to speak? When it becomes “good” for your health and happiness?

Writing and photography direction
NewCities Foundation

Edited by Emily Gribbin
Invited to write by Greg Lindsay
Montreal, QC

Digital rights,

Are human rights,

Founded by Jim Balsillie, the non-profit promotes digital literacy with Internet users and marginalized communities, and best practices, laws and regulations with policy makers. The Centre is currently busy with a quinfecta of legal complaints investigating the data protection practices of Canada’s three main federal political parties.

Writing, design and photography direction
Centre for Digital Rights

Edit by Neve Peric
Site developed by Nicolas Roy at Folklore Inc.
Photography by Philip Cheung
Toronto, CA

Visual identities,

As mythological tools,

“New City Myths” – For today’s private towns, visual identities and images are key tools in the power brokering of architecture, real estate, and geopolitics—from Lavasa in India to New Songdo in South Korea, and PlanIT in Portugal. Even Strand East, an IKEA village in London, England.

Writing
Volume no. 34

Edit by Brendan Cormier
Cover design by Irma Boom
Amsterdam, NL

Sidewalk Labs,

Smiles and similitudes,

“Where the Image Flows: How Sidewalk Labs’ Public Relations Came to Dominate Journalism” – What’s in an image from Sidewalk Toronto? It’s all there: Kids, kites, kayaks, and yellow butterflies. Warm timber towers and Bruegel similitudes. Boris Johnson blunders, Justin Trudeau smiles, and positive thinking for greater public-private statecraft.

Writing and collage
Failed Architecture

Edited by Joshua McWhirter
Amsterdam, NL

Colonial ﬁctions,

And their happy tunes,

Greg Durrell’s Design Canada is an important ﬁlm, one that has screened from film festivals in Aukland to the Embassy of Slovenia in Ottawa. It it important not as a documentary rife with untold stories, but as a sinister specimen of the dominant colonial ﬁction—repackaged with progress, modernism, and happy house tunes.

Film review
C Magazine

Edit by Chris Lee and Ali Qadeer
Public talk at SBC Gallery
Toronto, CA

The key to happiness,

Lies in the key word,

What happens when happiness gets tangled in measurement and digital surveillance infrastructure? In mood tracking? Sentiment analysis? Happiness indexing? One thing that happens is psychologists, office managers, and data scientists dominate the vocabulary. Even economists at the United Nations. Why? New research looks to the critical language of artists, architects and curators.

Research residency
Artexte

Interview with Joana Joachim
Montreal, QC

All the design,

That’s ﬁt to print,

Artists and designers research network protocols, community housing, and collective publishing, but one thing they have in common is a concern for how news engines frame their subject matter. Here, the style sheets of The New York Times are reframed for Sandberg Instituut’s Design Department graduation and exhibition at Brakke Grond.

Writing and design
Sandberg Instituut

First Prize, Coupe magazine
Edit by Annelys de Vet and Nina Folkersma
Designed with Lauren Grusenmeyer
Printed by Drukkerij Raddraaier
Amsterdam, NL

Writer-centric,

And absurdly eclectic,

Hazlitt is Penguin Random House Canada’s flagship digital magazine. It features emerging and established authors, journalists, poets, comic artists, and podcast producers—from Margaret Atwood to Linda Besner, Michael DeForge, Andray Domise, Anshuman Iddamsetty, Scaachi Koul, and John Michael McGrath.

Design
Penguin Random House Canada

Website of the Year, National Magazine Awards
Edit by Christopher Frey
Site developed by Wayne Thayer
Toronto, CA

The negative side,

Of positive thinking,

Smiling. Having fun. Feeling good. Those are great. The “positive thinking” ideology, however, is something else: It is dogmatic, decidedly anti-intellectual and anti-negativity. How does it influence design, publishing, and academia? New research analyses the work of Bruce Mau, Lidewij Edelkoort, Steven Pinker, and others.

Research, design and collage
Sandberg Instituut

Best Dutch Design Graduates, Items magazine
Best in Show, Coupe magazine
Public talks in Amsterdam, Detroit, Münich, Toronto, and Norfolk, Virginia.
Amsterdam, NL

Proﬁl,

Proﬁle,

Études, Studies,

Master of Design
Gerrit Rietveld Academie
Sandberg Instituut, Design Department
2011, Amsterdam, NL

Bachelor of Design
OCAD University
Faculty of Design, Graphic Design
2005, Toronto, CA

Certificate of Information Design
University of Toronto
Faculty of Information Studies
2001, Toronto, CA

Exhibits, Sites,

De Brakke Gronde, Amsterdam, NL
De Verdieping, Amsterdam, NL
Design Academy Eindhoven, NL
Droog, Amsterdam, NL
Schellens Fabriek, Eindhoven, NL
Vondelbunker, Amsterdam, NL

Tutor, Teaching,

École de design, UQAM, Montréal, QC
MICA, Baltimore, US
OCAD University, Toronto, CA
York University, Toronto, CA

Writing, Wits,

Articles (Artexte), Montréal, QC
Back Office (Éditions B42), Paris, FR
C Magazine, Toronto, CA
De Verenigde Sandbergen,
(Sandberg Institute), Amsterdam, NL
Failed Architecture, Amsterdam, NL
Print, New York City, US
The Gradient (Walker Art Center),
Minneapolis, US
The Graphic Design Reader
(Bloomsbury), London, UK
Volume (Archis), Amsterdam, NL

Tic, Talks,

AIGA, Norfolk, US
Central Michigan University, US
École de design, UQAM, Montréal, CA
GDC Manitoba, Winnipeg, CA
Harvard GSD, Cambridge, US
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, US
OCAD University, Toronto, CA
Print Room, Rotterdam, NL
Sandberg at Mediafonds, Amsterdam, NL
SBC Gallery, Montreal, QC
Typographische Gesselschaft München, DE
University of the Arts London, UK

Crédits, Credits,

Rankin, Scott
Illustration for BlockSidewalk.ca, 2019
Toronto, CA

Logan, Jason
Illustration for Apex magazine, 2014
Toronto, CA

Wong, Norman
Visual reportage for Apex magazine, “The Road to Jazz Fest,” 2014
New Orleans, US

Nieuwendijk, Jordy van den
Portraits for Make Ready’s The Surveyor, 2015
Amsterdam, NL

Cheung, Philip
Visual reportage of ABZ’s TXT summer school, 2018
Toronto, CA

Young, Ryan
Visual reportage for Apex magazine, Shin Yoshikawa and “The Art of the Cutaway,” 2014
Los Angeles, US

Michèle Champagne, M.Des,

Recherche, Graphisme, Etcetera,

Montréal, Mail, Michhham, +1 647 834 1507