Bryan Prince hosted The Designed Record, the first public event of The Prince Museum of Design
On September 16, Linguistics Department Manager Bryan Prince hosted The Designed Record, the first public event of The Prince Museum of Design, a cultural institution he founded and is building outside his work in the department.
The museum is organized around one idea: design works as infrastructure. It shapes how people behave, how power is distributed, and how culture becomes readable. It isn't just decoration. The Designed Record put that idea into practice through four original vinyl pressings, each chosen as a case study in design. The records were the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers, Foreigner's Records, David Bowie's Blackstar, and Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl.
The invite-only evening took place at the University Gallery at RIT. It brought together designers, faculty, students, and members of the broader Rochester community. Guests spent time with each record at its own station. They then moved into a facilitated conversation that started with personal reactions, turned to why design decisions get made, and ended with what those decisions say about the discipline as a whole.
By the end of the evening, it was clear to everyone design is all around us, and we're all impacted by it in ways we don't always immediately recognize.
Bryan brings about a decade of design experience to the project, and that background also shapes his work in the department. It has informed the recent redesign of the Linguistics website, the relaunch of the department's social media, and new student-facing resources.
The department congratulates Bryan on bringing the museum's first public event to life. You can learn more at princemuseumofdesign.org. The museum is also on Instagram at @princemuseumofdesign.