About Kate Johnston Elkan, Design Principal: Kate’s human-centered practice melds the fields of Product, Brand, Communication, and Service Design. Kate serves as principal of Present Tense Studio and has collaborated on projects with MasterClass, Earnin, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Toyota, The Art Newspaper, The Huntington Library, LA County Arts Commission, Hammer Museum, East of Borneo, and Armory Center for the Arts. She serves as Editor & Art Director of Pants Magazine and is a co-founder of the 500 Album Covers for Imaginary Bands project. In 2013, she co-founded the The Womens Center for Creative Work, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to cultivate LA’s feminist creative communities & practices.
Kate’s work has been featured on AIGA Eye on Design, Typotalks, Inform.design, and KCET Artbound. She is on faculty at Otis College of Art and Design and has most recently lectured at Typo Berlin, Komsfaack University Stockholm, CalArts, UCLA, and Pomona College. Kate holds an MFA in Graphic Design from CalArts and a BA in Classics from Pitzer College. She lives in Los Angeles and is open to working remotely.
Download Kate's resumé here.
