Biography
Kathy Mueller is an award-winning visual communication designer with experience in advertising, brand identity, publication design, and exhibition design. Her work has been recognized by leading industry organizations such as the Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, HOW International, and PRINT.
She has served as a senior designer on four editions of Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler, a widely respected guide for professionals in design, marketing, and business.
Mueller’s professional practice includes work with mission-driven organizations and women-owned businesses. Recent projects include marketing for COAL + ICE, an immersive climate-focused exhibition at the Kennedy Center, and a bilingual publication for Caring Across Generations that supports caregivers with accessible information and resources.
In addition to client work, Mueller maintains a self-initiated creative practice that bridges design and scholarship. She is co-founder of United States for Abortion, a collaborative project that reimagines the visual language of reproductive rights and has been featured in art exhibitions, academic conferences, and feminist media.
Across all her work, Mueller is interested in how design and advertising shape cultural narratives and how creative communication can contribute to more inclusive public discourse. Through critically engaged pedagogy, she examines how advertising can both challenge and reinforce dominant ideologies, and how advertising education can cultivate ethical, socially conscious practitioners.
She began teaching at Moore College of Art & Design in 2007 and joined the faculty at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication in 2010, where she is now Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. Mueller holds an MFA in Graphic and Interactive Design from the Tyler School of Art and continues to contribute to the professional design community through select client work and organizational service.