About

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© 2026
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Washington, DC
Brooklyn, NY

Eden Elam is a designer and strategist building frameworks that help founders, visionaries, and artists translate abstract ideas into clear, actionable strategies. She is the founder of Theory and Stone LLC, a creative consultancy, and Editor-in-Chief of The District Vanguard, a digital magazine spotlighting the work of Black artists and designers in and from the greater Washington, DC area. She holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design, where she authored an award-winning thesis (Spark Award, 2025) on redesigning the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form to improve clarity and accessibility for high school students.

An ethnographer at heart, Eden has embraced every opportunity to witness firsthand how people across cultures design their lives. Informed by experiences in Washington, D.C., New York, Havana, London, and Cape Town, she weaves expansive perspectives into strategies spanning human-centered design, management consulting, advertising and experiences, storytelling, behavioral science, and digital media. Her work has supported organizations including IFC Films, AIGA DC, Atlantic Media, the NAACP, Human Ventures, the UNHCR, and the Museum of the Moving Image.

Grounded in systems thinking, Eden practices design as a way of seeing — making the invisible visible, questioning what no longer serves, and building toward collective impact. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of AIGA DC and on the Alumni Council of The New School University.

Eden Elam

Theory and Stone

The District Vanguard

AIGA DC

The New School

Writing