Duncan Hamilton

Duncan Hamilton is an artist, graphic designer, and design educator based in New York. He has a broad creative practice that covers a wide range of commercial and self-initiated design projects. Since 2010 he has maintained an independent/collaborative design studio, The Uses of Literacy, focused on print and screen-based projects for arts-related and cultural institutions. He works across disciplines and media producing books, posters, typefaces, and visual identities as well as curated exhibitions, web projects, mobile platforms, music, and video.

In addition to studio projects, he runs workshops and has been a visiting professor at various art institutions in the UK and the US. He has participated in discussion panels at the Tate Gallery London, CCA Gallery Glasgow, and the New York Art Book Fair and curated exhibitions for the Arts Council of England, the Liverpool Biennial, and the Frieze Art Fair.

He is the co-founder (with Professors Ira Livingston and Jennifer Miller) of Poetics Lab, a transdisciplinary initiative at Pratt Institute.  PLAB sponsors faculty and student projects on an ad hoc basis as well as offering an annual team-taught class focused on practices and theories of PLAY as the creative process.

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK: MFA Communication Design. Research focused on the design of funeral homes and contemporary printed funeral ephemera in the UK. Thesis: “Funeral in Excelsis: The Ephemera of Britain in Mourning.”

Hull School of Art, UK: BFA Graphic Design (1st Class). Thesis: “Conservation Projects and Research: Visiting Poussin at the Courtauld.”

“Ecopoetics Groundwork” (Poetics Lab NY, 2024). Designed with author Ira Livingston.

“When Eye Land” (Printed Matter, NY 2023). Designed with author Star Feliz. Shortlisted for the Paris Photo / Aperture PhotoBook Award 2023. Aperture PhotoBook Award,

“Hunters Follow Harpy Shadows” (Printed Matter, NY 2021). Designed with author Rin Kim.

“Depreciating Assets” (Printed Matter, NY 2021). Designed with author Jessica Vaughn.

“September Spring” (Printed Matter, NY 2017). Designed with author Sam Falls.

Currently working on:

“There are no mediums, only media platforms, no stable images, only their constant circulation.” A study of the growing instability of images within contemporary visual culture that aims to offer tools and ethical guidelines for using images across different design disciplines.