Greg Thomas Professor of Design
Reared in Wichita, Greg Thomas began his design education at the Kansas City Art Institute, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He earned Master of Fine Arts degrees from both the California Institute of the Arts and Yale University. He has been employed by IBM, CBS, the offices of Charles & Ray Eames and Saul Bass.
For over thirty five years, Thomas was the owner and founding principal of Gregory Thomas Associates (GTA), a Los Angeles design firm specializing in brand strategy, corporate communications, multimedia and packaging. This small but internationally known firm has done branding programs for the countries of Australia, New Zealand and Austria as well as a number of US and international corporations. His work has received numerous national and international awards. As a professional photographer, his work has been featured along with an interview regarding Design’s PhotoMedia, click here.
In addition to graphic design, he is also a prolific author of his own book on Branding, and has written a number of articles on the subject for design publications as well as the journal of the University and College Designer Association of which he was a Board Member.
Thomas comes to KU from Los Angeles where in addition to running GTA, he was formally the Acting Chair at Art Center College of Design/Pasadena and has taught graduate students at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California (USC) and was a former adjunct at the USC School of Fine Arts.
Thomas teaches Branding and Environmental Graphic Design. He served as Chair of the Design Department from 2004-2009. He currently serves the School as Professional Development Coordinator.
He is a member and/or honored as a University of Kansas-Senior Administrative Fellow, Phi Beta Delta-Alpha Pi Chapter Honor Society for Scholars, Advisory Board University of Kansas Hospital Cancer Center, University KU Center for Research, Board of Trustees Lawrence Memorial Hospital Endowment Board, IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America)SEGD (Society for Environmental Graphic Design), University & College Designers Association American, Nikon Professional Services, Design Management Institute (DMI).
