Avrie Allen
Interdisciplinary Designer + Educator in Providence, RI
avrie.world at gmail
About
As a graphic designer, I work with individuals and academic, cultural, and community institutions. Since 2016, I have offered pro bono design services to volunteer-run, grassroots organizations. Across self-driven and comissioned projects I'm interested in using design to facilitate critical inquiry into, and collective sense-making of, lived experience and the material conditions that shape it. My interdisciplinary, research-driven practice takes many forms engaging visual, written, and material language.
I am currently working on freelance web and publication design projects, designing for Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, teaching graphic design, and developing a publication titled countersense. Email is open for inquiries into projects, teaching, workshops, or to request my full CV.
CV
Selected Publications
Girlhood Arrested: How Girlhood is Shaped by the Carceral Landscape in Louisiana
Designer (self), Co-Authored with The Visiting Room Project and Dr. Kennedi Johnson, 2026
countersense
RISD MFA Thesis, 2026
girlhood & its aftermath: feminist reflections on adolescence Anthology
Editor, Writer, and Designer, Self-Published, 2023
Education
MFA, Graphic Design
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, RI
BFA, Studio Art—Graphic Design
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Minor–Art History
Para-Institutional Education
Typography Summer School
with Other Means, Geoff Han, Fraser Muggeridge, and Michael Bierut, Brooklyn, NYC
Teaching
Instructor, Graphic Design I
Community College of Rhode Island, Fall 2026
Instructor, Activating Networks, Gathering Knowledge
Rhode Island School of Design, Wintersession 2026
Graduate Teaching Assistant, RISD Graphic Design Department
Rhode Island School of Design, 2025–26
Peer Tutor, Center for Arts & Language
Rhode Island School of Design, 2024–26
Facilitator, Girlhood Zine Workshop
The Visiting Room Project, 2025
Grants, Awards, and Fellowships
Graduate Commons Grant
RISD, 2026
Maharam Fellowship
RISD, 2025
Graduate Fellowship
RISD Graphic Design, 2024–2026
Cox Scholar
Indiana University
Graphic Design Area Award
Indiana University
Grafton D. Trout Essay Award
Indiana University, Art History Department—best paper of year
Solo Exhibition
girlhood redefined
Tangent Gallery, Bloomington, IN, 2024
Speaking
MFA Thesis Writing Workshop
RISD Graphic Design, Guest Panelist, Fall 2026
"Body of Knowledge," Graduate Artist Talk
Rhode Island School of Design, Winter 2026
Research
Karen Brodine Collection
Archival research of writings, notes, and works of poet, typesetter, and political organizer Karen Brodine, Supported through the RISD Commons Grant, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA, 2026—associated with countersense, fragments of a future, and The houses, the air, the streets
Kinsey Institute
Primary research on norms of girlhood constructed through 20th century sex education home guides, Supported by Indiana University, Kinsey Library Collections, Bloomington, IN, 2023–24—associated with girlhood redefined
RISD 150th Anniversary
Historical fact-finding on the past 150 years of RISD, RISD Marketing and Communications, Providence, RI, 2026