Partner & Design Director

Bud Rodecker

Bud Rodecker is a founder and design director at Span, a Chicago studio working with cultural institutions, civic agencies, and community-centered organizations across brand identity, exhibition design, publications, and naming. His work explores the space between logical constraints and formal play, and balances form with meaning. He strives to cut to the core, simply and with a playful spirit.

At Span, Rodecker and his team designed the exhibition graphics for Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the cover and interior design for The Architecture of Health: Hospital Design and the Construction of Dignity, a New York Times What to Read selection. The studio's rebrand of the invasive Asian carp as Copi drew international coverage from Wired, The Economist, Smithsonian Magazine, and Reuters, and earned a PRSA Silver Anvil Award. Recent projects include the redrawn Chicago Reader identity, the brand and website for the IIT College of Architecture, and Chicago's Living Habitat at the Chicago Architecture Center.

Rodecker has been named to Newcity's Design 50 in 2022, 2024, and 2026 for shaping the landscape of design in Chicago. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Design Archive, has been shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Chicago Cultural Center, and has earned recognition from the STA 100, AIGA and Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers, Tokyo TDC, Docomomo (Modernism in America Award of Excellence), and Graphis (Platinum Award).

Before founding Span, Rodecker was a partner at the legendary design firm Thirst with Rick Valicenti and John Pobojewski. He started as an intern and over a decade shaped the studio's work for clients including the DePaul Art Museum, IIDA, and the University of Illinois Chicago, before helping to sunset the studio and launch Span.

Outside the studio, Rodecker serves on the board of the Design Museum of Chicago and explores the creative process through self-initiated experiments. He taught design for over a decade at DePaul University and the Chicago Portfolio School, and has lectured at Cooper Hewitt, TypeCon, Typographics, and Cranbrook Academy of Art.