About

SuperCommunity

Maria Lamadrid’s practice, informally named SuperCommunity, is a design and technology studio profoundly invested in media design for meaningful civic change through community engagement, co-creation, and methods associated with Design Thinking.

Established in 2015 the goal of SuperCommunity is to offer design research and visual design services to agencies and nonprofits in Los Angeles County and beyond.

María del Carmen Lamadrid

María del Carmen Lamadrid is a media designer and tinkerer from Puerto Rico currently based in Los Angeles. She is interested in fostering collaborative methods for civic design practices shaped by post-colonial theory.

She completed her MFA in Media Design from Art Center College of Design’s Media Design Practice/Field, in partnership with UNICEF Uganda Tech4Dev and the award-winning Designmatters.

Currently, she splits her time between GreenInfo Network and SuperCommunity, civic technology, and art collaborative in Los Angeles. She authored the Social Design Toolkit, a book about the darker side of neoliberal practices that foster structural inequality in Social Design.

Her work has been recognized and featured in the 2009 National Art Sample of Puerto Rico, the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, Citizen Science Conference 2015, University of Brighton and Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design.

Selected Recognitions

Past Contributors

Thanks and recognition to the people who have contributed to the work of SuperCommunity.

Shawn Jackson

Co-authored PathHack

Shawn Jackson is an engineer and an interaction designer living in Los Angeles. He applies visual design and code to craft experiences that are as delightful to use as they are functional. He’s worked on information graphics and icon systems at frog, and web development and ethnographic research at Kaiser Permanente Innovation Consultancy. More recently, Shawn designed a user interface for data visualization and built interactive installations for public outreach at NASA/JPL. His design practice is profoundly interested in leveraging technologies that can foster communication, introduce delight, and lead to moments of discovery in our everyday transactions.

Noel Castellanos

Co-author of Is a Taco a Sandwich? Latinx Engineer and Designer explore tortillas as identity-making materials workshop. Volunteer assistance ArtEverywhere and Talleres Publicos Yes to ADU.

Noel Castellanos is an engineer and project manager who partners with designers, field technicians, and transportation planners to maintain and improve Metro’s growing rail network. He is a founding member of the Los Angeles chapter of Young Professionals in Transportation, a non-profit dedicated to career development and promoting a culture of public and active transportation in auto-centric LA.

Nidhi Singh Rathore

Provided volunteer assistance for the LA County Equity Summit.

Nidhi Singh Rathore is a design researcher and strategist– exploring the convergence of policy, research, and design in Mayor Garcetti’s Office in Los Angeles. Currently, she is working on the Mayor’s Innovation Team, exploring the themes of civic engagement, housing, displacement, and technology; through alternative research methods, critical approach, and design ethnography.

Thitiporn (Jojo) Chongjaroenjai

Jojo illustrated The Social Design Toolkit

Jojo is an illustrator, originally from Thailand, with a background in animation. Her works are inspired by creatures and people she meets in her daily life. Each whimsical piece is individually handcrafted from her imagination. She earned an MFA from Media Design Practices at ArtCenter and a BFA in Multimedia Design majoring animation and moving images from Silpakorn University International College, Bangkok, Thailand, as well as the other BA (Hon) in Visual Communication from Birmingham City University, United Kingdom.