Lisa Kozokowsky’s striking illustration for the November 2018 issue of Technical Communication was awarded a highly-deserving Honorable Mention.
Kozokowsky is in her fourth year of undergraduate studies at Mount Royal University, studying information design. After many years of running her own retail business and a significant career as an encaustic artist, she felt she was missing out on the world of academia.
In 2014, after two personal tragedies, she turned down an offer of admission to Mount Royal University’s nursing faculty to pursue communication studies in information design—a focus that more closely aligned with her personal pursuit of truth in the areas of visual communication and writing. Aside from taking in-depth courses in technical writing, rhetoric, and project management, Kozokowsky has worked with grass-roots organizations and corporations, researching data and designing public and government awareness data visualizations.
Her passion is bringing realities to life that were previously invisible. One of Kozokowsky’s recently acclaimed projects was for Choosing Wisely Canada. She was responsible for researching and designing the Canadian Healthcare Sustainability index—a data visualization that captured the waste of unnecessary medical diagnostic testing in Canada and the projected future consequences. What sets Kozokowsky apart is her critical design approach and ability to bring complex data to a concise and concrete level—something she feels is missing in a multitude of irrelevant and poorly designed information.
Kozokowsky’s current interests lie in instructional human-centered design, critical data analysis, and visual storytelling, as well as an obsession with the theories of mapping (both as an art form and a cultural narrative). She is the designer and author of her newest book, The Art of Lisa Kozokowsky, as well as Vanguard, a new magazine publication on mapping.