By day, Alison King is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and History at Grand Canyon University. By night she's an artist, activist and the founder of the midcentury modern network known as Modern Phoenix LLC.
Alison earned her degree at Parsons School of Design in New York City in the 90s, where she trained as an illustrator and art historian. She earned her Masters in Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and returned to Phoenix in 1999.
Now she's a graphic design generalist who values traditional skills such as lettering, calligraphy and printmaking. She's facile in digital illustration, web design, social media marketing, email marketing and design for acceleration of small businesses. You can hire her through her company Ligature LLC.
Alison loves to motivate and engage her audience through well crafted and persuasive writing, whether it be long-format article, a medium-format eblast or short format Instagram caption. Stories are her new obsession.
She's shared her expertise on these topics for the last 20 years while teaching at Grand Canyon University and The Art Institute of Phoenix.
As a third generation teacher, the knack for instruction seems to be knit in her DNA. She spends her spare time educating her peers in other outlets such as AIGA, Creative Mornings, Pecha Kucha, Burton Barr Library, Modern Phoenix and the AZ State Historic Preservation conferences.
In 2019 she was commissioned by a local architecture firm to write, design, and publish her second book, "Making Architecture: The Work of 180 Degrees Design + Build". It recently won a Silver Addy Award for Book Design and a Bronze Addy Award for Copywriting.
Alison is an active volunteer and member in a number of organizations, including AIGA, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the David Wright House. As an activist, she leverages her visual communication and social media skills to inform public opinion and influence policy regarding historic preservation.
No sidewalks were harmed in this form of peaceful, legal and temporary urban activism in the downtown arts district of Phoenix.