Allison Sklaney

Thoughtful, engaging and receptive. Allison Sklaney has been described by her students in many ways, but these three words capture the sensibility she brings to the classroom. Coming to teaching later in her career Sklaney fuses together the management, editing and graphic design skills she acquired through a decade and a half working on the creative side of the media and publishing industries.

After graduating from the Newhouse School with a master’s degree in magazine, she began her career in New York City at Condé Nast Publications. Sklaney contributed to the successful launch of Style.com, the Webby-award-winning first website of Vogue and W magazines. During the New York, London, Milan and Paris fashion shows, she worked as the night-shift artist, designing the homepage that Anna Wintour would see the next morning. The high-pressure environment taught her the efficiency and resilience skills she still uses today. The countless hours she spent researching in the Vogue archives built up a photographic-style muscle memory that continues to inspire her work.

After returning to her hometown of Syracuse, Sklaney worked for The Post-Standard newspaper. She designed the CNY, Voices, Technology and Opinion section covers, as well as, Moneywise, Weekend and Central New York: The Good Life magazines. Out of her own desire to bring local fashion to the paper, she produced lifestyle and fashion editorial packages straddling multiple departments. She created the editorial content, designed the way it should look for print and curated the content for Syracuse.com.

Sklaney teaches the theories underlying graphic design, how to think and communicate visually and how to illustrate digitally.