KRZYSZTOF LENK

risd connection: Professor, Department of Graphic Design

professional practice: Retired founder of Dynamic Diagrams, Inc., an international information design firm, and consultant to Tellart, an up-and-coming multimedia firm know for its intelligent aproach to information architecuture.

special skill: Teaching students how to turn cold, hard facts – charts, diagrams, graphs – into invigorating images.

the road to risd: Lenk’s long-term leave from Poland, where he specialized in publication and poster design, was “pure accident.” It began in 1982 when he agreed to add an information design class to his schedule as a visiting designer at RISD. “The department head asked if I knew anything about diagrams and charts – I was so happy to be out of Poland, I said ‘sure.’”

breaking in: The trip from posters to pixels started in the RISD Library, where Lenk hunted in vain for a single book on designing diagrams. A decade later, he started Dynamic Diagrams, Inc. (in his bedroom), linking his information talents to the dawning need for Web visuals.

making it: Lenk built his Providence-based studio into a thriving business, with clients in Germany and England and an office in London. Since retiring from his bustling practice in 2000, he has balanced teaching demands at RISD with advising a small group of former students as they launch their own ambitious firm, Tellart (www.tellart.com). There, he still works on information design projects that are aimed at “socializing the Web” by creating imagery that soothes, stimulates, educates and navigates the user out of the typical electronic theme park environment. Clients like IBM, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, Netscape and Harvard University have a fresh and frank new Web personality thanks to Lenk’s informational vision.

when not teaching, he’s likely to be: … meeting friends from Poland for an opening and dinner in Boston… cracking open his newest classical CD… taking road trips with his wife to explore the US…

discoveries: (1) You can go into business from teaching, not just the other way around. (2) Information design is the best field because it’s driven by aesthetics, not marketing. (3) Re: his extensive classical and jazz collection: “I listen to music with my whole body.”

education
MFA, Academy of Fine Arts, Cracow, Poland