Willie Baronet

About Me

Willie Baronet has been buying and collecting homeless signs since 1993 as part of a long term art project titled "WE ARE ALL HOMELESS." In 2014 he began a 31-day cross country trip to buy signs in 24 cities, which was the subject of the documentary Signs of Humanity (currently available on Amazon Prime), which premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival and was accepted into 7 additional festivals. The project has been featured in dozens of international and local media, including Yahoo! News, NPR - All Things Considered, The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera America and Fast Company’s blog, posted by Katie Couric. An UpWorthy video about the project has been viewed over 6.5 million times. 

Research articles about this project have been published in The American Journal of Public Health, and The International Journal of Social Psychiatry. Both projects were done in collaboration with Dr. Rosemary Frasso Phd, Program Director, Jefferson College of Population Health, Philadelphia, and a team of her grad students. Other research projects are currently in development.

Exhibits of his work have been featured in “Art as a Medium for Action” at Hoxton Arches, London and Pembroke College, Cambridge, “Truth to Power” in Philadelphia in conjunction with the 2016 Democratic National Convention (which also featured Banksy, Ron English and Shepard Fairey), the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, the Anchorage Museum, the 15th Annual “No Dead Artists” at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, LA, “INVASIONEN/INVASIONS” at the Galerie Carolyn Heinz in Hamburg, Germany, NYU, UPenn, and the “500XPO 2012” at 500X in Dallas. He has had over 90 exhibitions of his work in the past 14 years.

Willie was the owner and creative director of GroupBaronet (now MasonBaronet) from 1992-2006. His design and advertising work has been featured in Communication Arts, Graphis, AIGA, New York Art Directors, The One Show, Print Casebooks, Annual Report Trends, The Type Directors Club and Annual Report Design: A Historical Retrospective 1510-1990, organized by the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design. 

In 2013 he was given the AIGA Fellow award, the highest honor an AIGA chapter can bestow upon one of its members.

He has spoken to dozens of business and creative organizations over the years, including TEDx, AIGA, HOW Design Conference, Leadership Arts, and has judged many creative competitions including the prestigious Communication Arts Annual. Willie graduated with an MFA in Arts and Technology from UTD in 2011. He has been a member of the art collectives “In Cooperation With Muscle Nation,” “14+1” and “CircleWerk.” 

Willie is a 1982 graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He has taught advertising design at Brookhaven Community College, Texas A&M at Commerce, TCU, and has served as visiting faculty for the MA Program at Syracuse University.  

Willie is currently the Stan Richards Professor in Creative Advertising at SMU's Temerlin Advertising Institute, where he teaches classes related to creativity and portfolio development. 

In 2021 SMU awarded him with the “M” award: “The "M" Award is the highest recognition bestowed upon faculty on the SMU Campus. The recipients' efforts have been continuous during their years at the University and are not limited to a narrow vested interest. The "M" Award honorees are an inspiration to others, giving unselfishly of their time and talents in order to make the University, and indeed the world, a better place.” 

And in 2024 he was the recipient of the HOPE award (Honoring Our Professors’ Excellence), the only campus wide professor award that is student nominated. 

Skills

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