MARCY WACKER
With more than 25 years of professional practice and 15 years of teaching, Marcy returned to UC Davis to explore design’s “gaps”—overlooked, avoided, and ignored spaces. Her work acknowledges and amplifies forgotten objects, people, and ideas, investigates how they reveal and influence our human experience, and
reimagines how we teach design and why. Her current research focuses on creating design teaching resources with and for educators and students.
Marcy is also the founder of The Whole Creative, a mentorship program that helps designers find purpose and meaning in their work, Program Director for Capitol Creative Alliance’s Ascenders Academy mentoring program, and host of Pop-Up Art Retreat—a space for creativity, collaboration, and community.
In August 2023, Marcy will continue her teaching career in a new role as Assistant Professor of Design Studies at Sacramento State University.
About this project
Design History Dossier Magazine is part of Design History Dossier (DHD), my MFA thesis project at the University of California, Davis. DHD is designed to assist educators in addressing the lack of representation in the graphic design canon. Through an ecosystem of tools, resources, and supportive community engagement, DHD provides educators with classroom-ready materials that challenge existing power dynamics and expose students to a broader range of artifacts, ideas, and practitioners.
DHD would not have been possible without the guidance, support, and endless encouragement of my family, professors and mentors, colleagues, and friends.
With profound appreciation, I thank the following people:
THESIS COMMITTEE
glenda drew, Susan Verba, Simon Sadler, and Brett Louis Snyder
DESIGN MFA Program
Jiayi Young, Chair, and Rachelle Agundes, Graduate Program Coordinator
Design Department Faculty
Javier Arbona, Susan Taber Avila, James Housefield, Tim McNeil, Michael Siminovitch,
and Jae Yong Suk
Education Department Faculty
Marcella Cuellar and Gloria Rodriguez
Colleagues
Debra Belt, Tom Fillebrown, Adam Flint Taylor, Mark Hill, Bill Mead, Elisabeth Nunziato, Natalie Rishe, Alexa Roberts, and Angelina Sorokin
DES 198 Students
Jorge Cervantes, Langston Hay, Britney Lay, Michelle Mendoza, and Pachia Vang
Fellow Graduate Students
Niloufar Abdolmaleki, Hafsa Akter, Diana Valeria Araiza Soto, Cristina Gomez,
Justin Marsh, Alejandra Ruiz, Quinessa Stibbins, Pachia Lucy Vang,
Ofelia Viloche Pulido, Iris Xie, and Rova Yilmaz
FAMILY + Friends
My mother, Priscilla Armitage, husband Matt Wacker, sons Jackson and Owen Wacker, brother Mark Hill, in-laws Jon and Carol Wacker, and dear friends Erin LaRosa,
Lee Ann Prebil, and Courtney Zuke