Bruce Mau

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Bruce Mau (born October 25, 1959 in Sudbury, Ontario) is a Canadian designer. Mau is the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and the founder of the Institute without Boundaries.

Bruce Mau studied at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, but left prior to graduation in order to join the Fifty Fingers design group in 1980. He stayed there for two years, before crossing the ocean for a brief sojourn at Pentagram in the UK. Returning to Toronto a year later, he became part of the founding triumvirate of Public Good Design and Communications. Soon after, the opportunity to design Zone 1/2 presented itself and he left to establish his own studio, Bruce Mau Design. Bruce remained the design director of Zone Books until 2004, to which he has added duties as co-editor of Swerve Editions, a Zone imprint. From 1991 to 1993, he also served as Creative Director of I.D. magazine.

From 1996 to 1999 Bruce Mau was the Associate Cullinan Professor at Rice University School of Architecture in Houston. He has also been a thesis advisor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design; artist in residence at California Institute of the Arts; and a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He has lectured widely across North America and Europe, and currently serves on the International Advisory Committee of the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio.

In addition, Bruce is an Honorary Fellow of the Ontario College of Art & Design and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He was awarded the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation in 1998, and the Toronto Arts Award for Architecture and Design in 1999. In 2001 he received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver.

[edit] Controversy

Bruce Mau's Massive Change exhibit was critically lauded for its theme of utilizing design for social good, but received criticism for its main funding source. Altria, formerly known as Phillip Morris, was Massive Change's main sponsor and is one of the biggest tobacco companies in the world.