Delivering MITRE’s Mission and Message — By Design

When Lori Fermano joined MITRE in 1984, graphic design was a hands-on craft of drafting tables, physical layouts, precision tools, and production deadlines. Four decades later, the tools have changed dramatically, from print boards to digital platforms to AI-assisted design. However, the purpose of her work has not: helping MITRE make complex ideas clear, credible, and compelling.

Fermano sees graphic design as more than her career: “It’s in my blood.” Over four decades at MITRE, she’s brought creativity, artistry, and accessibility to scores of digital and physical products showcasing our work.

Graphic design lead Lori Fermano takes high concepts and high tech to a different plane. On MITRE’s communications and external affairs (CXA) team, Fermano works alongside content strategists, designers, and multimedia specialists dedicated to making sure MITRE’s image represents our mission — and rendering the highly technical to understandable. 

Fermano says she considers it “a true privilege” to play an essential role in that messaging and storytelling. As a visual problem-solver, her design skill connects her to every facet of MITRE’s array of scientific advances and the great minds behind them. At her very core, she contends, is her firm belief in the power of design in sharing MITRE’s story.

“Every design detail — the imagery, the white space, the font usage, and where it appears on the product — makes a difference,” Fermano says. “We’re here to convey innovation, excitement, and brand identity in every MITRE publication and product.”

Fermano’s body of work amplifies MITRE’s impact, but it gets noticed on its own merits as well — including a prestigious Silver Quill award from the International Association of Business Communicators.

Experts by Design

In an era when AI and self-serve design tools can generate visuals in seconds, Fermano’s career underscores a critical point: access to tools is not the same as design expertise. The value of a skilled designer is not simply making something look polished. It’s knowing how visual choices shape understanding, trust, accessibility, and action.

“Almost everyone at MITRE has subject-matter expertise,” she says. “Design expertise is its own animal. There’s purpose behind every design decision.”

Sara J. Prentice, vice president of CXA, says Fermano represents the kind of behind-the-scenes expertise that determines whether MITRE’s work is not only seen or read, but understood.

“Messaging at MITRE, whether through words, design, or conversation, is deliberate work,” explains Prentice. “It takes judgment, context, and care, because how we present our ideas shapes whether they are understood, trusted, and remembered.”  

“There’s a real art to balancing information,” Fermano stresses. “Good graphic design doesn’t just involve the visual; it’s a strategic solution involving psychology, planning, and skill.”

She continues: “We respect how much knowledge, experience, and effort it takes to develop a product or paper or website. We put the same amount of care in ensuring it reflects MITRE’s brand and reputation as a leader in government research and development.”

Passion and Purpose

Fermano’s design sensibility emerged early. By her teens, she was creating ads, yearbooks, and newsletters for a Boston-area printer, learning the discipline of layout, typography, deadlines, and client expectations before design became a desktop function.

She was working for a Bedford, Mass., design firm when Lincoln Laboratories reached out for help drafting some schematics. “And suddenly I was a freelancer for several big firms, including MITRE,” she says. Brought on full-time in 1984, she has witnessed MITRE’s physical growth and expansion of subject-matter expertise to touch nearly every kind of national challenge.

Through it all, she says, the core challenge has remained the same: turning complexity into clarity.

Fermano knows firsthand how far graphic design has come over the decades, and she’s always been a proponent of taking advantage of what’s new and exciting in the field. But she believes nothing replaces the personal touch that a strong background in design provides. 

A Community of Creativity

How does it feel to be in an artistic field in an organization where scientific minds comprise the overwhelming majority? 

Fermano is quick to point out the many flavors of creativity at MITRE, and her admiration for a community dedicated to addressing huge challenges in the world. As a group, there are many commonalities. And having the opportunity to contribute to these solutions through graphic design keeps her interested and invigorated.

“I’ve never become bored of the work. Not because it’s easy — far from it,” she says. “It’s because the work, MITRE’s and my own as a designer, really matters.”