Visiting Professor’s New Book a Modern Guide to Starting a Design Studio
If you’re starting out in design, it’s important to get practical experience as soon as possible. But how?
In her effort to create a student-run design studio, Jessica Meharry searched for resources to answer exactly that question.
But she couldn’t find any—so she decided to compile and publish some resources of her own.
Her new book, , was published by Bloomsbury in late 2024. Meharry co-wrote the book with , an associate professor of graphic design at Virginia Tech.
Now a , Meharry notes that the book is the product of “a lot of interviews, a lot of research, with faculty and with students.”
“It’s really about helping students understand how to work with clients,” she adds. “For a student who’s just getting on board with what it’s like working with a client, this book can help them figure out some of the nuts and bolts of that—all the way up to a fully-fledged, student-run studio operating on a campus.”
The book offers information ranging from basic tips on how to handle invoicing and internal billing, all the way to how to walk a client though a feedback session.
“How do you envision where your client work will focus? What happens if you go out into the community and try to do more community engagement? What are the ethics and things you need to think about there?” These are the types of questions Meharry and Dee ask and answer in their book.
The book delves not only into how to find and retain clients and tackling real-world design problems, but also examines essential, nuts-and-bolts managerial topics such as defining work roles and handling logistics and planning. Its final section focuses specifically on student-led studios.
Meharry notes that the book is particularly important to students. “Design is so much about practice that we believe students have to experience that right away in their education and not just after they graduate.”
Research for the book was conducted with the help of a grant from the .
Meharry and Dee will talk about their new book in a virtual event on March 25, 2025 at noon.
