Tanner Woodford is founder and executive director of the Design Museum of Chicago. As an artist, he paints optimistic, typographic, and larger-than-life murals. His work has appeared at the WNDR Museum, Soho House Chicago, and is permanently installed at Weber Shandwick in the John Hancock Building.

In 2020, Tanner was appointed to the City of Chicago’s Cultural Advisory Council. As a designer, educator, and entrepreneur, he has taught, lectured, and led workshops on design issues, social change, and design history in classrooms and at conferences.

Tanner received a Bachelor of Science in Design from Arizona State University in 2009, and returned to teach in 2010. More recently, he teaches Design Thinking For Social Change at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is happy to be scrappy, irrepressibly optimistic, and believes design has the capacity to fundamentally improve the human condition.

Select CV

Career

Design Museum of Chicago, Founder & Executive Director (2012 – Present)
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Faculty (2014 – 2019)
Morningstar, Designer (2010 – 2014)

Public Art

Houston Botanic Garden, Pride & Promise: Christmas Tree (2022)
Western Illinois Museum, What You Feed Will Grow (2021 – Present)
The Railyards Boulder, Bring Unity to Our Community (2021 – Present)
Navy Pier, Postcards to Chicago (2020 Jul – Present)
Weber Shandwick, The Future Is Not What It Used to Be (2020 – Present)
Soho House Chicago, Make & Take Time (2019 Jan)
Gary Indiana, Things Take A Long Time (2018 Jul – Present)
Chicago Pedway, The Shape of Things to Come (2015 Aug)

Appearances

WGN–TV, Interview (2022)
Lumpen Radio, Pocket Guide to Hell (2022)
Central Elementary School, Artist in Residence (2020)
Loyola New Orleans, Designing a New Museum (2019)
Chicago Humanities Festival, Interview of Lance Wyman (2018)
The Man Behind the Bunny: Art of Playboy, Interview (2018)
Bend Design Conference, Longhand, Writing Letters (2017)
American Packaging Summit, Case Studies, Container Coporation of America (2015)

Press

IIDA, Perspective: Changemakers | Talk Talk with Quilen Blackwell (2022)
Newcity, Designing a Better Chicago: A Grant Program on a Mission (2021)
Fortune: The Greatest Designs of Modern Times #12, 54 (2020)
Thrillest, Best New Museum in Chicago (2018)
China Daily, Hong Kong Design Show Charms Chicago With ‘Creative Ecology’ (2017)
WBEZ: Morning Shift, What’s Worth Preserving In Chicago? (2017)
Chicago Tribune: Design Museum Launches Kickstarter Drive (2014)

Writing