Don Adleta is one of the three professors of design at Ohio University. He arrived in 1994 and has served as the chair of the graphic design area for 17 of those years. He continued to build the BFA curriculum and he initiated and implemented the MFA in Graphic Design. Don’s book, focus drawing, is a case study of one of his drawing classes. It includes the taxonomy of his teaching processes. It is the first of a series of focus books he intends to publish on design education. His Adleta Perpetual Calendar has been recognized nationally and has received multiple awards worldwide. It is in the permanent collections in Novi Sad Museum of Art and Design, Serbia, in Zurich’s Museum für Gestaltung, and was also available at the Museum of Modern Art Bookstore, NY. Don continues to work with his mentors from the Basel School of Design, Switzerland. His special interest is in documenting the way the Basel Weiterbildung was. Don managed Adleta Galleries, Ltd. 2001-2006. And still maintains a presence online with those artists that showed at his gallery. adleta.us

Don enjoys traveling and encourages his students to do the same. Shortly after he arrived in 1994 he began taking students to Bali in the summers of ‘95, ‘97, ‘99 and 2000 to visually translate the color experienced close to the equator. In 1996, he joined two of his colleagues and 25 students in a study abroad venture in Prague for a full academic term. He has taken students to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Amsterdam, Zurich and London to visit with professional designers such as: Wim Crouwel, Tibor Kalmar, Michael Bierut, Wolfgang Weingart, Fritz Gottschalk, Massimo Vignelli and Jerry Kuyper. He has taught and lectured at the National Institute of Design in Ahmadabad, India, and the Wellington Polytechnic in New Zealand. Don was a professor of design and letterform at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1982 to 1987. He also taught at Western Michigan University from 1989 to 1992. Don was a Senior Art Director for The Upjohn Company from 1987 through 1993, where he received several Special Recognition Awards for his design and working process. In 1982, Don completed his post-graduate studies in Graphic Design at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. His undergraduate studies were at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio University where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1975.