Muhammad Nafisur Rahman
Muhammad Nafisur Rahman is an Assistant Professor (Tenure-track) of Communication Design at the School of Design, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Design (DAAP), University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He holds a B.Arch degree from Brac University, Bangladesh in 2006.
After working as a Lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Brac University from 2007 till 2012, Nafis pursued Masters of Design in Graphic Design from University of Illinois at Chicago; Summer Design Certificate from the Basel School of Design, FHNW, Switzerland; Graduate Certificate in Urban Design, and currently pursuing his PhD in Architecture, both in University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. College of Design, Architecture, Art and Design (DAAP), University of Cincinnati is celebrating its 100 years of design education this year. It is one of the top-ranked design schools in the USA. His dissertation research is focused on the pre-liberation war period in Bangladesh and the taxonomy of urban Bengali political writing with special emphasis in public space, urban identity and impermanence of urban typography.
Amongst his professional and academic achievements in the USA, he has presented his research findings at various conferences — ACSA, ACSP, SEGD, and EDRA to name a few. He worked as a Branded Environments Designer at Perkins and Will, Chicago and taught as Erasmus Scholar. In conjunction with his research and professional affiliations, he has taught students in communication design and architecture programs for over 13 years. Owing to his background as a practitioner, Nafis takes an interdisciplinary and practice-informed approach to research that gives him the ability to bridge between built environment, communication design and typography. His works consist of various branded interior and space design projects, book design, brand identity, wordmark including environmental graphic design (EGD), promotion materials, experimental typography, poster design etc. During his tenure at BRACU, Nafis has designed many graphic and interior designs — BRACU Alumni Association logo, Angan Lecture logo, Archweek identity, additional modification of the BRACU logo, etc. to name a few.
His research interests are urban typography in public space, on-premises signage research, and place-identity discourse. Muhammad Rahman is an Assistant Editor of "Visible Language Journal" the oldest peer–reviewed academic journal for design. In the finalist team of Obama Presidential Library and Museum design proposals in Chicago in 2014, he worked as a Visual Designer. Recent honors include receiving the MAHASSA research scholarship supported by Cornell University and the Getty Foundations; Research Fellowship from Academic Advisory Council for Signage Research and Education (AACSRE) for research projects on storefront signage and neighborhood identity. Nafis is invited as the research-lead for a special curatorial project in the Dhaka Art Summit 2023. Nafis is the Co-founder of AfterHours Talks— a digital media platform that inclusively focuses on the built environment for the architecture, construction industry and interdisciplinary practices in Bangladesh and abroad. He organized and curated online sessions by inviting 45 guests for 45 consecutive weeks during 2020–21.
School of Architecture and Design (SoAD) is proud to have alumni out there in the world making a difference and creating an impact. We would like to share their achievements with our community, particularly our students, so that they find inspiration in them to reach the height of their own potential.