About Us

Karen Parry
Principal

Directly following her studies at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Australia, Karen worked as a photographer and photography teacher until moving to Berlin, Germany in 1988. While dodging the Iron Curtain's falling rubble, she held the position of Art Director for the English-language magazine The Edge, and then, after The Wall succumbed, for the berliner.

In 1991 she escaped the cold winters and a bankrupt Berlin economy and moved to then recession-plagued San Francisco. Through the early 1990s, Karen designed a variety of branding and print materials: logos, brochures, music CD packaging, book covers, event fliers, manuals, user guides and catalogs, for clients including for Pacific Bell, Bank of America, New Albion Records, and the Scottish Cultural & Arts Foundation. She also briefly taught Composition and Design in the photography department of the (currently-named) Academy of Art University.

Having already pursued studies in Interface Design and Instructional Design at the SFSU Extension – and also participating in their Artists-in-Residence Program – she made in 1996, a hard left turn straight into the craziness of Web 1.0. It was the early, fast-paced years of the internet. For the next five, almost-sleepless, years she designed sites for clients Food.com, backflip.com, Bank of America, Segasoft, Ikonic/USWeb, Agency.com and Interbrand.

In 2000, she founded Black Graphics with the objective to bring her extensive design knowledge and experience in both print and web to the nonprofit and public interest sectors. Through Black Graphics she often works with strategic partners such as Fenton Communications and Digital Justice.

Her work has won numerous awards and been published in a variety of design books and magazines. She is a member of ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) and AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts).