Candice Lopez is a professor of graphic design at San Diego City College. She worked as an art director at BBDO Los Angeles and at design firms in San Diego before discovering that teaching was her passion. She has taught graphic design abroad in Zurich, Switzerland, Venice, Italy and Madrid, Spain and wrote a book on international education. San Diego City College is an inner city, urban community college and students there have won over 150 prestigious local, national and international design awards.

Her work for AIGA San Diego as Vice President, Education and Community Outreach chair led her to establish the Link Program that works with at risk high school students who have an interest in art and design. She currently serves as Art and Culture chair for the mayor of San Diegos downtown vision plan. Together with her husband Rafael she developed the Urban Art Trail Project that transformed districts of downtown San Diego that were plagued with blight and social problems. The project brought together designers, calligraphers, students, seniors and children who painted murals, electrical boxes, inscribed poetry onto sidewalks and created colorful mosaics and sculptures. Her latest venture the BenchMark Project brought 150 unique benches to downtown San Diego that were auctioned off to benefit arts education programs.