CD Lecture Series: Eric Li

🎥 CD Lecture Series: Eric Li

Parsons Communication Design Duration: 59 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fxsb2_VdBw

Hook

Eric Li reveals how designers can cultivate a dynamic, multidisciplinary practice that thrives at the intersection of design, technology, and education rather than choosing a single path.

One-Sentence Takeaway

A fulfilling design practice emerges from intentionally cultivating complementary roles in teaching, studio work, and professional practice that inform and strengthen each other.

Summary

Eric Li, Senior Digital Product Director at the Eames Institute and Parsons faculty member, delivers a compelling lecture about his journey through design and technology and how he developed his unique triangular practice model. He begins by questioning why he does what he does, encouraging students to reflect on their own motivations before entering professional practice.

Li traces his path from studying computer science at Princeton, where an internship at Google left him uninspired despite the prestige. A visual form class with David Reinfurt opened his eyes to design, leading him to create his first design project exploring RGB and CMYK color spaces through an interactive LED device. This experience sparked his passion for design that exists at the intersection of technology and creative expression.

His journey took him to LUST, a Dutch design studio known for critical cultural work that straddles design and technology boundaries. There he worked on digital installations, data visualizations, and interactive art projects that pushed conventional design boundaries. After returning to Google’s Material Design team and experiencing the corporate design process, he joined IDEO to explore mid-sized commercial design work.

During his senior year at Princeton, Li collaborated with studio mate Jonathan Zong on projects including the “Interface Your Face” podcast and experimental typography. His senior thesis, “What’s True Form,” challenged traditional presentation by emphasizing the conversation about design over the artifacts themselves, displaying wall labels as the primary focus with physical work relegated to secondary status.

After graduation, Li worked at O-R-G in New York, where he expanded his skills across print and digital design, creating projects like the O-R-G Small Software Shop and institutional websites. His move to MoMA as a Senior Product Designer and Developer marked a significant shift, where he led digital initiatives during the museum’s renovation. At MoMA, he developed the “Sal” design system library that embedded design rules directly into code, allowing designers and developers to speak the same language.

The core of Li’s lecture focuses on his current triangular practice model composed of teaching at Parsons, his studio practice Ercan-Li with partner Nila Reza, and his day job at the Eames Institute. He emphasizes that these roles are not equally weighted but constantly fluid, with different areas demanding more attention at different times.

For his studio practice Ercan-Li, Li highlights their “Open Letters” project that resisted AI scraping by incorporating the EURion constellation, an anti-counterfeiting pattern found on currency. As an educator at Parsons, Li discusses developing rigorous programming curricula that balance technical precision with creative application, including assignments like orbital dynamics simulations and mindful internet usage tools.

At the Eames Institute, Li leads digital product efforts to share Ray and Charles Eames’ legacy. He details the process of creating a visit page for the Institute’s Richmond location through collaborative workshops, personas, and information architecture exercises. This project exemplifies how design provides concrete surfaces for organizational decisions.

Li concludes with the metaphor of “crop rotation” for creative practice, suggesting that moving between different aspects of design prevents creative burnout and allows ideas to develop. He demonstrates how teaching has improved his workshop facilitation, how studio work informs his professional projects, and how his day job provides practical experience that enhances his teaching.

Throughout the lecture, Li emphasizes collaboration, acknowledging that none of his work happens in a vacuum. His presentation reveals a thoughtful approach to building a design career that values interdisciplinary thinking, technical skill, and creative exploration while maintaining personal fulfillment and growth.

Insights

Core Insights

Design and technology are not opposing forces but complementary disciplines that enhance each other when integrated thoughtfully
A multidisciplinary practice prevents burnout and creates cross-pollination of ideas between different aspects of work
Teaching technical skills to designers creates better partners for developers and vice versa
Design systems work best when design rules are embedded directly into code rather than treated as separate documentation
The most fulfilling design careers often emerge from unexpected combinations of skills and experiences rather than following a predetermined path
Self-initiated projects can provide creative freedom that client work rarely allows
Understanding your “why” is crucial for building a sustainable and meaningful design practice
Design artifacts are secondary to the conversations and thinking processes that create them
Successful digital design for cultural institutions requires balancing preservation with accessibility
Programming teaches designers that there are sometimes right and wrong answers, a valuable perspective in a field often dominated by subjective criteria

How This Connects to Broader Trends

The rise of multidisciplinary design practices that challenge traditional silos between design, development, and strategy
Growing importance of design systems in creating consistent digital experiences across large organizations
The evolution of design education to include more technical skills alongside traditional design principles
Cultural institutions’ increasing need for digital products that serve both preservation and public engagement missions
The tension between open information sharing and protection of creative work in the age of AI
The shift from specialized design roles to hybrid positions requiring both design and technical capabilities
The value of teaching as a way to deepen one’s own understanding of design principles
The application of human-centered design methodologies beyond commercial products to cultural and educational contexts
The ongoing challenge of balancing artistic experimentation with practical constraints in professional design practice

Frameworks & Models

The Triangular Practice Model

Li presents his personal framework for a sustainable design practice composed of three interconnected elements: teaching, studio practice, and day job. These elements are not equally weighted but fluid, with different areas requiring more attention at different times. The model emphasizes how each aspect informs and strengthens the others: teaching improves communication skills useful in professional settings, studio work allows for creative exploration that can inform client projects, and professional experience provides real-world context for teaching. This framework challenges the notion that designers must specialize in a single area and instead proposes that a multidisciplinary approach creates more resilient and fulfilling careers.

Design as a Surface for Organizational Decisions

At the Eames Institute, Li demonstrates how design provides concrete surfaces for abstract organizational decisions. When faced with the amorphous task of “adding a visit page,” he facilitated workshops that stripped design to its core elements of type and content hierarchy. Through collaborative exercises including stakeholder input and persona development, the team transformed vague requirements into specific, user-centered design solutions. This framework positions design not as decoration but as a problem-solving methodology that makes abstract decisions tangible and actionable.

The Sal Design System Library

At MoMA, Li developed the Sal design system library, named after Sol LeWitt, which embeds design rules directly into code rather than treating them as separate documentation. This framework includes typographic hierarchies, components, spacing, and other design elements as CSS classes that can be implemented directly by developers. The significance of this approach is that it creates a shared language between designers and developers, reducing bottlenecks and ensuring consistency across digital products.

Progressive Disclosure in Information Design

Li references the concept of progressive disclosure, which he encountered during his work at LUST and later applied at MoMA. This framework involves revealing information in layers, with more detailed content becoming available as users drill deeper into an interface. It balances the need for comprehensive information with the risk of overwhelming users, creating intuitive pathways through complex content. This approach is particularly valuable for cultural institutions with extensive collections and educational missions.

Crop Rotation for Creative Practice

Adopting designer Peter Mendelsund’s metaphor, Li applies the agricultural concept of crop rotation to creative practice. This framework suggests that creative professionals should rotate between different types of work to prevent creative burnout and allow ideas to develop. Just as crops deplete soil nutrients if planted too long in one field, focusing exclusively on one aspect of design can exhaust creative energy. By moving between teaching, studio practice, and professional work, designers can maintain fresh perspectives and allow ideas to mature in different contexts.

Quotes

“I consider it kind of one of the first pieces of design I ever produced and it definitely doesn’t look like your traditional design project so to speak. And I kind of you know don’t really consider myself a traditional artist designer in the sense that I’m good at like painting or drawing or any of that.”

“A lot of the work that I enjoyed doing spanned across design and software. It wasn’t really an either or situation.”

“I realized that from all these experiences I kind of came up with a list of things I really wanted to have in my next role: I wanted to be able to work on interesting conceptual work, I wanted to be able to think deeply and evolve a product over periods of time or products, I wanted to be able to wear multiple hats across different disciplines, to continue to grow and learn and participate in a design discourse and to work across multiple mediums both physical and print.”

“I think what is really useful to think about is how all of them inform the other. I think teaching I found has really helped me become better at running workshops and like sharing things out. The idea of having to break things down and make them really understandable especially technical material ends up being really useful when you’re trying to explain that to a bunch of non-technical stakeholders as well.”

Key References

Princeton University — Where Li studied computer science and first encountered design through David Reinfurt’s visual form class
LUST — Dutch design studio where Li worked on digital installations and critical cultural projects
Google — Where Li interned twice, first in research and later with the Material Design team
IDEO — Design and innovation consultancy where Li experienced mid-sized commercial design practice
O-R-G — David Reinfurt’s studio practice where Li expanded his print and digital design skills
MoMA — Where Li served as Senior Product Designer and Developer, leading digital initiatives
Parsons School of Design — Where Li teaches interaction design and computer science
Eames Institute — Current organization where Li serves as Senior Digital Product Director

Crepi il lupo! 🐺