Chris Shortt [he/him] is a Mancunian graphic designer and editor, working between Cambridge and London. He is interested in the intersection of politics, class and visual culture, and his practice looks to foreground art and design as instruments of social change.
Chris has designed publications for Tate Publishing, Norfolk Museums, and the University of East Anglia, alongside his full-time job in book sales at Tate.
Since 2021, Chris has been the designer at Common Threads Press, a small press dedicated to the radical histories of crafts and making, which he runs with his partner and founder, Laura Moseley. They have published books on topics such as Palestinian embroidery, Hawaiian quilts and ecology, and the protest banners of the disabled rights movement — working collaboratively with academics and contemporary artists, and supported by a small team of volunteers. Their publications are sold in bookshops and exhibited in museums all over the world, and they regularly fundraise for charities and community groups including the Navajo Quilt Project, Black Art Library, and Palestine Red Crescent Society.
chrishortt@gmail.com