About Brandy
Brandy Gibbs-Riley is a multidisciplinary designer whose practice focuses on graphic design and surface / textile design. She specializes in corporate identity, branding, and visual systems as well as designing patterns and motifs for fabric, decor, and home accessories. She finds inspiration in a wide range of sources, including 20th Century Modernism and historical ornament. In her work, both personal and commercial, she explores the spectrum (and tension) between minimalist, abstract forms and decorative excess.
Brandy was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, an area rich in colonial and industrial history. Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, early Moravian architecture, and the graphic quality of Bethlehem's industrial structures (steel mills) still influence her work today. Of equal influence are her travels throughout Europe, Australia, and the Pacific, as well as beautiful New England, where she has spent most of her professional life.
A former design educator, she has also served as an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire and a Practitioner-in-Residence and Lecturer in Art & Visual Culture at Bates College in Maine.