Indigenous Creatives Roster

Daniel R. Smith is a Seattle artist, graphic designer, and design curator. His art spans multiple mediums, including collage, sculpture, photography, and installation, including an on-going land installation, the “nanoforest”, which connects his upbringing on the Tulalip Reservation to life in a rapidly gentrifying Seattle neighborhood. Smith has exhibited locally at Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA), Bellevue Art Museum, and SOIL. His works are in the permanent collections of Seattle City Light, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, MoPop, SF MoMA, Emory University, Yale University, and University of Washington.

As a career graphic designer and Creative Director, Smith’s work is primarily focused on consumer branding for icons like Starbucks and Pepsi, but he’s also used design as a tool for deeper connection. As an act of citizen diplomacy, he organized, curated, and designed a series of international poster shows for Bumbershoot, pairing the work of Seattle designers with those from Havana, Tehran, Moscow, and Istanbul. He visited those cities to create lasting partnerships with designers and educators, sparking numerous cross-cultural exchanges across difficult political boundaries.

Smith’s mother is Tulalip and he grew up on the Tulalip Reservation. He holds fine art and design BFA degrees from the University of Washington.

[email protected]
Seattle, WA