Calen Benson is a designer, illustrator, and a self-proclaimed creative coder from Illinois. They have been working towards their BFA degree in Illustration alongside a minor in Communication Design at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. She has had multiple pieces included in their 2025 Don’t Call Me Junior exhibition. During their time at MIAD, they worked as a lab monitor for the Lubar Emerging Technology Center and a liaison for the student engagement team. She is inspired by how we play and interact with art, and how that stimulates creativity within us. They aspire to see their work in a tangible format. Describing their work as silly and whimsical, they enjoy experimenting with color, shape, and texture to create illustrations that evoke feelings in the viewer. She enjoys working with multiple media in different ways. She is most comfortable creating digital art in Procreate, but you can also find her latch hooking rugs of her own designs or creating audio-reactive visualizers in TouchDesigner. In their free time, you can find them playing around in their sketchbook, discovering new music, reading non-fiction books, playing video games and researching various tech gadgets.