Expected Dec 2026
PhD, Art & Design Education (ABD)
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois
Dissertation: “Cultural Differences in Assessment Practices in Undergraduate Graphic Design: A Ghana–US Comparison”
Selected work
Eleven projects2004 – 2025
Outdoor & campaign
Nestlé Yumzie · Outdoor billboard · Two executions
Yumzie infant cereal: outdoor campaign
Roadside billboards for a Nestlé weaning-food line. Product, endorsement and age range had to resolve in the few seconds a driver has, so the packaging shot carries the recognition and everything else is stripped back to one claim.
Blue Glow · Beverage · Poster & can graphics
Blue Glow energy drink
Can graphics and the campaign built around them.
Public awareness · Poster · Ghana
Stop! Galamsey: Save the future
A campaign against illegal small-scale gold mining and the river pollution it causes. Documentary photographs are cropped and stacked like evidence; the handcuffs supply the consequence without a word of copy.
One identity, three formats, and three different jobs to do.
The can
The constant. Condensation, a hand-drawn wordmark and a two-tone split that survives being shrunk to a shelf facing or blown up to two metres.
The poster
Gives the can a stage. The chequered plane, suspended fruit and running figure argue the health claim rather than the stimulant one, turning a category convention to a different end.
The banner
Drops the argument entirely. At ten metres a shopper wants the flavour range and a number to call, so the narrative gives way to an inventory.
Publication design
Authored and designed · U-Gain Publishers · 2016
Contemporary Graphic Design & Introduction to Graphic Design
Two textbooks for colleges, polytechnics and universities in Ghana, written and designed by the same hand, front cover through spine, flap copy and barcode. Contemporary Graphic Design carries ISBN 978-9988-2-3283-2.
Trade titles · Full jacket · Ghanaian publishers
Special One · Victims of His Faith
Cover and jacket design for independent Ghanaian authors. The typographic voice is set to the book rather than to a house style, with author biography and spine treatment handled as part of the same object.
Visual identity
Institutional & event
NIU School of Art and Design · Poster
Artist Talk: William Estrada
Visiting-artist poster for the School of Art and Design at Northern Illinois University. The portrait holds the top third; the artist's own work supplies the palette and fills the counter-column beside the details.
Takoradi Technical University · Poster · 2021
2nd Biennial Research Conference
Announcement for a virtual conference on research in the technical-university sector. Four speakers, a theme, two dates and a submission deadline, ordered so a scholar scanning it finds the deadline last and remembers it first.
Northern Illinois University · Greeting cards · Two designs
Campus holiday cards
Seasonal cards built on Altgeld Hall and the university's own letterforms. Two registers, one secular and one devotional, from a single set of assets.
Grey Africa · Accra Grilled Chicken · Calendar & menu flyer
Food and corporate collateral
A desk-calendar spread and a quick-service menu sheet. Food photography does the selling; the typographic job is to price it clearly and get out of the way.
Teaching
Ghana & the U.S.2007 – present
I teach graphic design as a way of thinking, not a set of skills to acquire.
Tools change and platforms come and go; the software a student masters in their sophomore year may be obsolete by graduation. What lasts is the ability to see a problem clearly, make deliberate visual decisions, defend them, and adapt when the situation shifts.
The studio is a working community, not a room where I lecture and students execute. Critique sits at the centre of everything I do, and I treat it as a skill students learn rather than a verdict they receive. Early in a course I model how to look at work and name what is happening in it. By the end I want students running their own critiques, articulating their choices, and unafraid to question mine.
I have taught this way for close to two decades: to fourth-graders learning to see line and shape, to undergraduates in Ghanaian design studios, and to graduate students in the United States unpacking the philosophy behind assessment.
Courses I am prepared to teach
Foundation studies & basic designElements, principles, composition and craft for first-year studios.
Visual design & typographyVisual hierarchy, text–image relationships, persuasion, colour and mood.
Advertising designConcept, campaign systems, outdoor and print execution.
Media planning & direct responseChannel strategy, direct mail, media scheduling.
IllustrationDry and wet media, advertising illustration, vector systems.
Digital media & art and technologyDigital tools, interactive media and design thinking, undergraduate and graduate.
PhotographyIntroductory camera, lighting and image-making for designers.
Packaging & publication designStructure, dielines, jackets and editorial layout, grounded in press practice.
Branding & visual identityMarks, systems and applications from sketch to production file.
Assessment & evaluationCurriculum design, rubric development, formative and summative assessment.
Design history & criticismBeyond the survey of styles: who the canon includes, and who it leaves out.
Pre-press & print productionColour management, proofing, imposition and press checks.
Evidence of effectiveness
4.44Overall teaching score in Art and Technology, reported in the department's graduate faculty appointment request
2026Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, Northern Illinois University
7 / 8Students responding to the Evaluation and Assessment course evaluation, Spring 2026
“Professor Wor created his course content and layout so that we focused on one topic per class which made for easy learning. We did not jump around the syllabus and his classes followed a successful and structured schedule. Our hands-on assignments added to the understanding that I now have of each topic discussed.”
Student evaluation · Art and Technology, Fall 2024
“I was really overwhelmed in the first few weeks of class and intended to drop the class. Professor Wor provided encouragement and allowed me to move things around so that I could continue in the class successfully.”
Student evaluation · Evaluation and Assessment, Spring 2026
“The overall structure makes me more aware of finding the right balance and of negotiation and listening when evaluating students' work, so as not to intimidate them but to make sure they grow.”
Student evaluation · Evaluation and Assessment, Spring 2026
Student work
Work produced by students in my courses in Ghana and the United States, across packaging, identity, advertising, illustration, editorial and web design. The range matters more than any single piece. It is the evidence of what a studio can produce when the brief is clear and the critique is honest.
Packaging · Fall 2023
Instant Plantain Fufu
Package design for an African food product. The student had to make a staple dish legible to a shopper who has never cooked it, and did it with the prepared bowl rather than the powder.
Identity · Graduate student · Fall 2024
Botanicals identity
A single-weight leaf mark, tested where it will actually live. Presenting the mark on a product rather than on a white square is part of the assignment.
Identity & packaging · Fall 2025
Chirple
A script mark that doubles as a bird, applied as a seal on kraft packaging. The logotype and its application were solved together rather than in sequence.
Advertising · Fall 2021
Burger King campus edition
A promotional flyer for a campus offer. Price, product and call-to-action ranked in that order, with the brand's own crown doing the recognition work.
Digital imaging · Photoshop · Spring 2021
Photomontage
A compositing exercise where the test is not the creature but the water line, the spray and the light matching across four source images.
Illustration · Illustrator · 2023
Comic page
Vector illustration built as a single scene: flat colour, controlled palette, and depth carried entirely by overlap and value.
Editorial · April 2021
Anthrax health manual
A public-health cover that has to be authoritative without being frightening. Illustration instead of photography, and a title set to be read across a room.
Web design · 2024
Artist portfolio site
A student's own portfolio site. The oval crops read as a filmstrip and set the letterspaced wordmark below them. Restraint learned rather than imposed.
Web design · Art and Technology · 2025
Art educator's teaching site
Built in Art and Technology by a graduate student in art education, documenting his own practice and his classroom use of digital tools. The course outcome and the course subject in one artefact.
Poster · Fall 2021
Album poster
A release poster where the portrait, the ghosted second image and the title share one tonal range. The discipline here was restraint with a photograph the student loved.
Research
Assessment · CritiqueCross-cultural pedagogy
When a design is judged, whose standards are doing the judging?
My research grew out of my own working life. Having taught design for close to two decades in Ghana and now in the United States, I have watched the same layout, the same drawing, the same critique land completely differently depending on where the student and the instructor came from.
That gap is the centre of my scholarship, and it matters for anyone who teaches, assesses and mentors art and design students.
The dissertation. A cross-cultural qualitative study of how cultural difference shapes assessment and critique in undergraduate graphic design classrooms in Ghana and the United States, and how those practices can become more culturally responsive.
Framework. Gloria Ladson-Billings' culturally responsive pedagogy, supported by Hofstede's cultural dimensions, Hall's work on high- and low-context communication, and postcolonial theory.
Method. Reflexive thematic analysis across interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, syllabi and rubrics, and students' design work.
One thread I find especially generative: minimalist Western design tends to read as neutral, while non-Western design gets labelled as cultural, a framing that quietly shapes what counts as good work.
Book
- TextbookWor, K. J. (2016). Contemporary Graphic Design for Colleges, Polytechnics and Universities. Kumasi, Ghana: U-Gain Publishers. ISBN 978-9988-2-3283-2. Authored and designed.
Peer-reviewed articles
- 2025Coker, E. V., & Wor, K. J. Bridging generations through art: Community, creativity, and wellbeing. International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education, 8, 48–57.
- 2024Leonard, N., & Wor, K. J. Addressing algorithm materiality and bias through art: Exploring social media–augmented reality features. Art Education, 77(4), 20–26.
- 2017Wor, J. K., & Asafo-Adjei, R. Assessment of the factors that challenge the quality of billboard advertising in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis. 1st Takoradi Technical University Biennial Research Conference Proceedings. ISSN 2637-3564.
Selected presentations
- InvitedConscious application of design principles to spark creative outcomes. National Pingtung University, Taiwan, 2025.
- InvitedCross-cultural perception of graphic design students about assessment practices in undergraduate design classrooms. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 2025.
- NationalAssessment practices in design education: Cross-cultural examination of cultural influence. National Art Education Association Conference, Louisville, KY, 2025.
- NationalTeaching impactful label designs with Adobe Photoshop (with G. K. D. Amuzu). National Art Education Association Conference, Louisville, KY, 2025.
- RegionalSatire in the classroom: Using editorial cartoons to decode power and inequality (with G. K. D. Amuzu). Illinois Art Education Association Conference, Schaumburg, IL, 2025.
- RegionalDesigning with purpose: Enhancing creativity through design principles in the art classroom (with G. K. D. Amuzu). Illinois Art Education Association Conference, Normal, IL, 2024.
- RegionalDesigning digital social justice posters with a Shepard Fairey aesthetic (with G. N. Leonard). Illinois Art Education Association Conference, St. Charles, IL, 2023.
Curriculum vitae
BFA · MAPhD (ABD)
Education
2014
MA, Publishing Studies
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
2006
BFA, Graphic Design
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
University teaching
2024 – present
Instructor of Record, Northern Illinois University
Art and Technology (undergraduate and graduate); Evaluation and Assessment in Art & Design Education
2022 – 2024
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Northern Illinois University
Clinical Experience in Studio Pedagogy; Introduction to Art & Design Education; Histories & Philosophies of Art Education; Seminar in Art Education
2018 – 2021
Senior Lecturer, Takoradi Technical University
Advertising Technology (applied and media planning tracks); Media Planning & Direct Mail Advertising
2016 – 2021
Visiting Lecturer, University of Education, Winneba
Foundation Studies in Graphic Design; Introduction to Visual Design; Vector-Based Systems and Applications; Dry and Wet Media Illustration; Advertising Illustration
2007 – 2018
Lecturer, Takoradi Technical University
Basic Design; Introduction to Photography
Professional practice
2025
Graphic Designer (internship), OC Creative
DeKalb, Illinois. Client work and contemporary production in a US studio environment.
2018 – 2020
Assistant Manager, Takoradi Technical University Printing Press
Production operations, print workflow, quality control across pre-press and press.
2006
Creative Director, Cosmos Educational Press Ghana Ltd.
Accra. Visual identity and publication design; creative team direction, brand standards, print production.
2004
Graphic Designer, Kwame Nkrumah University Printing Press
Kumasi. Layouts and design assets for academic publications and institutional communications.
Curriculum development & accreditation
2021
National curriculum team, CTVET, Ministry of Education, Ghana
One of four members appointed to develop the national Graphic Design and Printing curriculum.
2018
BTech Graphic Design, curriculum design & accreditation committee
Takoradi Technical University.
2016
Secretary, MTech Graphic Design and Printing Technology programme committee
Takoradi Technical University.
Awards & honours
2026
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant AwardNorthern Illinois University
2025
Outstanding Graduate Student AwardSchool of Art & Design, Northern Illinois University
2023
Presidential Scholarship & Graduate School GrantNorthern Illinois University
2017
Cumulus Plus GrantCumulus International Design Association
Service
2024 – present
Reviewer, National Art Education Association conference papers
2022 – 2025
Board Member, NIU Museum BoardAlso International Affairs Advisory Board, 2024
2021 – 2022
Vice Dean, School of Graduate StudiesTakoradi Technical University. Academic Board 2019–2021; Convocation Board 2020–2022; Publication Board 2019–2022.
Contact
DeKalb, IllinoisOpen to faculty appointments, visiting lectures and design commissions.
johnsonkwor@gmail.com