[2] She lives and works in Los Angeles, moving within a community of graphic designers making "literate, intelligent work"[3] such as Anne Burdick, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Jens Gehlhaar, Geoff Kaplan, Geoff McFetridge, Louise Sandhaus, Alexei Tylevich and Michael Worthington.
[4] She has also been a designer for the vanguard artist magazines Artpaper and RealLife, as well as the literary journal BlackClock.
Her work is part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) permanent collection.
[5] Her creative work has been exhibited at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), CAM Raleigh, Pomona College, and at the Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno, Czech Republic.Her work has been acquired by many public collections, including Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Merrill C. Berman Collection, SFMoMA and LACE.
Swanlund sits on the board of DesignInquiry,[6] a non-profit educational organization devoted to researching design issues in intensive team-based gatherings.