To mark the opening of Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births, MAD and AIGA NY are partnering to present a panel discussion led by Pulitzer Prize-winning design critic Alexandra Lange. From medical tools and graphic campaigns to everyday products, this conversation invites us to consider designers’ roles in shaping access, dignity, and cultural narratives around reproductive health. Lange will be speaking with Meg Crane, the inventor of the first home pregnancy test; design innovator Melissa Cullens; and designer Christa May, author of They Have You by the Ovaries: Commodification of Reproductive Biology.

About the panelists

Meg Crane studied at Parsons and worked as a freelance graphic designer. She invented the first home pregnancy test.

Melissa Cullens is a designer with 20 years of experience turning behavior, emotion and mindset into innovative experiences that reach product/market fit. Her work at Ellevest transformed the financial industry for women — bringing more of us together to confidently talk about money and start building wealth. She led the reinvention of Vogue.com and the digital experience of SiriusXM, designed events for IBM, and some of the first online iterations of American Express. She currently runs Charette Studios, a customer-obsessed brand and product studio that help companies launch better, scale faster and pivot smarter.

Alexandra Lange is a journalist, design critic, and author. Her essays, reviews and profiles have appeared in numerous design publications including Architect, Harvard Design Magazine, and Metropolis, as well as in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. She is a contributing writer for Bloomberg CityLab, and has been a featured writer at Design Observer, an opinion columnist at Dezeen, and the architecture critic for Curbed. In 2025 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for a series on how urban design and architecture affect children and families.

Christa May is a Brooklyn-based designer, researcher, and cultural worker. Her independent project, They Have You by the Ovaries: Commodification of Reproductive Biology, explores how social and political forces lead many women to freeze their eggs, only for that biological material to be managed and sold back through subscription models run by venture-backed fertility companies. The project situates egg freezing alongside the way matrescence, the transition into motherhood, is marketed as a luxury lifestyle. Through historical research, design analysis, and personal narrative, it considers how reproductive futures are being packaged, monetized, and enclosed.

Her experience includes work with Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. She has held fellowships with the NYC Public Design Commission, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and NPR’s How I Built This Summit. She invites conversations with individuals who have experience in assisted reproductive technology.