Jennifer Morla. Designer. And my hero.

My friend Jennifer Morla is the recipient of the highest honors a designer can receive in the United States, including the AIGA Medal and the National Design Award given by the Cooper-Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum.

Yes. Those are quite some achievements.

The Massachusetts College of Art recently granted Jennifer its Design Distinguished Alumni Award. The college recognized her outstanding accomplishment and the lasting impact she has made in design and a leader in our creative community. It is a rare honor of the highest distinction presented to an individual who embodies MassArt’s most cherished values. 

As a fellow alum of MassArt, Jennifer asked me to introduce her.

I was beyond honored.

So I did.

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Good afternoon, all.

Designers will often ask themselves, at the outset of a big, challenging project, one question:

“How can I possibly do this?”

Jennifer Morla never asks that question. Instead, she asks this:

“Who’s going to stop me?” 

Thankfully for all of us, and for over four decades, the answer has been the same:

No one. 

You don’t just look at something Jennifer Morla creates. You practically hear it. It announces itself. You’re pulled into dialog with a revelation. Because she's always known that being a designer is much more than being a professional who works with color, form, image, words and typography—it is a calling to a life that gives a bold voice to a truth. 

If anyone was born with a voice to do that, it’s Jennifer.

She’s always had the gift of speaking the languages of both art and commerce. Fluently.

So, naturally, her work often leaves me speechless. Every piece talks directly to its moment in time and yet also whispers to a larger ideal outside of time—whether it’s a poster, a book, furniture, a film, a web site or an environment, all of which I’ve watched her create. Sometimes, up close.

So, what can I say about Jennifer’s prolific excellence that's new? 

Perhaps that it has never surprised me.

Think about it: How could someone with her emphatic point-of-view of design NOT start and lead a remarkable, globally recognized design firm?

Or a person with her immense talent NOT create work that raises the bar so high it ends up in museums of modern art in both San Francisco and New York City?

How could she NOT have won hundreds of awards of excellence, including the two highest awards given for design in America:

 - The AIGA Medal 

- The Cooper Hewitt / Smithsonian National Design Award?

How could a human being with her amazing generosity NOT turn 20 years of classrooms filled with her students into designers who make an impact around the world, year after year after year? 

Or this:

98 posters

4 Swatch watches

51 books

26 retail stores

143 museum and gallery signage programs

6 textile collections

3,480 web pages 

3 apps

54 TV openings

and videos

68 magazine covers

209 magazine ads

404 catalogs

52 pieces of furniture

192 packages

47 paintings

3 tons of steel sculpture

2 remarkable daughters

and far too many logos to count.

But across all of this, one thing has surprised me: How am I only giving this speech now? Jennifer has deserved this recognition for every single one of the twenty five years I’ve known her.

Even though we couldn’t celebrate this together in person, Jennifer, allow me to give my voice to this undeniable truth:

Your work, your career, your commitment to live a creative life has spoken to all of us—and shared the secret of what design, and what being a designer, really is...

you care. 

About all of it.

And I speak for everyone here at MassArt when I say thank you. 

Thank you for all of it.