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Ricardo "Rick" Griffith (born 1969). is a self-taught graphic designer, art director , master letterpress printmaker, writer, curator, educator, lecturer and activist. He owns and operates MATTER, a design studio, typography laboratory and design bookstore, and founded the Black Astronaut Research Project (BLARP.org)  Griffith and his partners create and disseminate graphics geared towards dismantling white supremacy and racism in the interest of reparative justice.

Early Life and Education
Griffith was born the UK, raised in Southeast London, and educated at Colfe’s College, Sidcup, United Kingdom. He immigrated to the United States in the late ‘80s, where he finished his schooling in Washington D.C.

Career
Griffith began work in Washington D.C. area record stores, which moved Griffith on to graphic design. A freelance career on Madison Avenue funded his first practice, RGD (Rick Griffith Design), and he founded MATTER in Denver, Colorado, which, over the last two decades, has grown into a design consultancy, print shop, workshop and Denver's only black-owned  retail bookstore.

In December 2020, Griffith was named PRINT Magazine's first artist-in-residence, where he now writes a weekly column, Processing.

Griffith has lectured at University of Louisville Hite Art Institute, University of Southern California Roski School of Design, Montana State University, South Dakota State University, University of Texas, Austin, University of Minnesota, Duluth, and the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Denver, University of Colorado, Denver, and has been a visiting artist at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

Griffith has curated major design exhibits for the Denver Art Museum, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and at AIGA New York.

Achievements
Griffith's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, the Denver Art Museum, the Butler Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Columbia University, the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, the Western New York Book Art Collaborative] (WNYBAC); and Columbia College's Center for the Book in Chicago.

Griffith was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at the Art Institute of Chicago; received the Denver One Club Award in 2017 and 2018; the Type Director's Club award in 2004, was included in HOW Magazine's International Posters edition in 2004, and received Print Magazine regional awards in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, and 2009; was included in AIGA's 50 Books/50 Covers in 2004 ; and the Belmar Award for Achievement in Art and Design in 2004.

Griffith has been a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts since 1994 and served as president of the Colorado Chapter from 1995 to 1998, continuing to serve on their advisory board through 2006. He served on the Denver City and County Cultural Commission from 2012 to 2016, and on the Board of Directors for the Alliance for Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum. He was inducted into the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in 2001 and presently serves as the Services Nominating Chair.

In 2021, Griffith chaired the national AIGA Design Conference, and will chair it again in 2022.

Essays, Articles, Books & Monographs

 * Processing, a weekly column for PRINT Magazine
 * Seeking New Suprematist Forms Through Typography (2003)
 * Thirty Words (2003-2004)
 * Augmented Signs (2001)