I met Laurel first as my teacher; she became my mentor and colleague when I started teaching.

Laurel’s classes are delightful. Her prompts are open-ended and thought-provoking, but the objectives are clear: the work feels meaningful both creatively and in terms of what you’re learning. As a result, every student produces something worth critique, no matter their level of prior experience or creative interest. In discussions, Laurel deftly puts disparate projects in context, so we could learn from each other.

Laurel’s classes often include a collaborative class-wide project. As coordinator, Laurel finds a role for each student, so each can contribute. The projects have lives outside of the course, being published or broadcast online to the general public. As a student, the opportunity to be a part of something that crosses out of the classroom and into the world is so satisfying. It puts into practice Laurel’s ambition that design be experimental, surprising, and rigorous, whether you’re doing work for a class or a client.
⊙
Rosa McElheny
Designer (Linked by Air), Lecturer (Yale)

Laurel and I have been friends since 2012 and more recently began working together, creating a new website for Artists Space along with several artist microsites.

In both friendship and collaboration, Laurel is a source of light and ingenuity, a generous listener and an inventive collaborator, bringing care, consideration, and a quiet genius to everything she does. One of the things I admire about Laurel and what I find invaluable when working together, is her precise yet responsive vision, accounting for technical constraints and client feedback, conjuring something that is entirely unique, lasting, and seemingly effortless.

☀

Mark Beasley
Artist, Educator, and Software Developer

I met Laurel in 2013 when I was a firstyear at Yale and she was the coolest lecturer at the School of Art. I took her Interactive Design course, on one glorious poster gratefully collaborated, and have consulted her on matters of creativity and curiosity since. She’s nearly unique among the design educators and professionals I’ve met in that she doesn’t seem to be on a mission to project to others how hard design is, but rather—with her work, enthusiasm, and thoughtfully brilliant pedagogy—show others how easy it can be. Laurel inspired me and my classmates to believe that we could be smart and creative and have fun writing code and use the Internet thoughtfully, deliberately, and artistically like she does. It’s difficult to not feel sometimes that the Web we love has worked itself into a tighter more tangled knot with less room for sunlight, fresh air, and weirdness than it once had, but then off in a quiet room with wood furniture, some natural light, and probably a plant Laurel is quietly making an app that will surprise you, bring a smile to your face, and make you see your whole relationship with technology in a new light. I cherish and celebrate her work, her friendship, and her advice.

~

Isaac Morrier
researcher, designer, dev

I hired Laurel to bring “The Creative Independent” to life. Since then, we’ve worked on multiple projects, and each one has been a joy.

Collaborating with Laurel is like getting to touch magic. She brings an electricity and otherworldliness to her work that's distinct from anyone else I've collaborated with. This is especially rare and necessary on the internet, where so much feels the same. As a thought and creative collaboration partner, Laurel’s energy is essential — bringing ideas into being becomes easy with Laurel. I can't recommend collaborating with Laurel highly enough.

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Yancey Strickler
writer, entrepreneur (previously CEO of Kickstarter)

I first met Laurel through the Internet and now the line between friend and collaborator is increasingly blurred. We now work together at Are.na.

Laurel is one of the few people in the world who's perspective I regularly try to inhabit. "What would Laurel do?". Her perspective is singular and she's worked for a long time on cultivating it. As simple as this sounds, it's an extremely rare quality. Usually this manifests in artists in ways that are not very conducive to collaboration. In Laurel's case, this perspective is paired with not only an impressive level of empathy, but extremely advanced communication skills and a high degree of craftsmanship. This combination of attributes makes Laurel a valuable colleague. And I mean that almost literally – Laurel is also one of the few people where I'm so impressed with their work that the bad side of me doesn't want to tell anyone about them.

Charles Broskoski
CEO Are.na

I’ve known Laurel for a long time, as a friend, frequent collaborator, and even roommate for a year. In all of those contexts I’ve witnessed her curiosity and creativity, and how generous she is with both. When we lived together we would sit around the kitchen table in the evening talking through our projects and in-process ideas, which was formative for me in realizing how much dialog and collaboration can strengthen them. Later we started an interview series for Are.na called The Kitchen Series, where we brought others into the conversation and published our dialog. I met so many other artists, designers, and writers that way; Laurel’s truly a connector. In the years since, I’ve edited a publication for her class at Yale, as well as several pieces of her writing, which never fail to be totally original, connect disparate voices and ideas, and form new publics around them.

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Meg Miller
writer, editor

I commissioned Laurel to design & develop the website for my collaborative project "Alt Text as Poetry."

My initial interest in working with Laurel came from the energy and inventiveness that she imbues in projects. So much of my experience of the internet and websites is that things feel pretty homogeneous. So I was really excited that each website Laurel had made felt like a special and distinct space. Especially as a project that exists primarily online, I wanted Alt Text as Poetry's home to be something that supported the project's unique flavor and feelings (inviting, playful, artist-made, peer-to-peer, etc). I really appreciated Laurel's communication and listening throughout the project. The very first design directions felt so responsive to our hopes for the project in a way that made me feel very heard and understood. And as we got deeper in the process, I felt like our lines of communication were clear and easy to navigate. We are over the moon about the website Laurel made for us and it has continued to be a beacon that attracts so many varied audiences to the project.

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Shannon Finnegan
artist

I was a student in Laurel’s Interactive Design class at Yale University in the Spring of 2015.

It was one of the most inspiring classes I took during my time there, and Laurel’s teaching and creative thinking have continued to influence me throughout my professional career – often reminding me to approach the world from new perspectives, with a refreshing level of attention and care. Laurel’s extensive knowledge base, visual references, concise communication, and sense of humor, make her a wonderfully engaging and approachable leader. She has a special knack for inviting people to contribute in meaningful and personalized ways that feel generous to all parties involved. Anyone would be lucky to work with and learn from Laurel.

❀
Lian Fumerton-Liu
artist, designer, student

I was once a lucky student and assistant, now lucky collaborator and friend of Laurel’s.

Laurel has a natural gift for guiding others. I have had the privilege of working with her as both a student and an assistant, and can therefore attest to her capacity for leading people in a variety of contexts. Whether it is in a one-on-one setting, or within a group of vast skillsets, Laurel knows how to offer support while simultaneously allowing each member of her team to speculate, iterate, and interpret the work on their own terms. Her sensitivity and observant nature allow her to recognize when it is beneficial to pause, or to accelerate the conversation. I see her as naturally adept at activating the latent ideas resting in both the projects and people around her. Through Laurel, I have witnessed the value in playfulness as a legitimate component of the creative process. Walks in the park, conversations on the phone, and returns to personal archives are equally fruitful methods of ideation. She is skilled at documentation, organization, synthesis, and most critically, eliciting the unexpected. Underlying these skills is a depth in thinking. There is a high degree of poeticism in her work, as she often makes reference to themes of wind and weather, yet she also possesses a complementary pragmatism. She knows when and how to abbreviate for the sake of legibility to a wider audience without sacrificing complexity. Every project, whether in the form of a class, a video tutorial, or a website, allows for viewers to enter and exit as as they wish. Each work becomes a learning experience with multiple points of entry embedded throughout. More time spent with the work leads to greater depth. Laurel’s approach is impressive for its holistic quality, as she steadily applies the intention of encouraging mindful interaction between people and systems. Her practice is committed and generous, for it is simultaneously an exploration for herself, as well as for those who have the pleasure of working alongside her.
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Megan Pai
artist, designer