Rethinking the Capstone in a Graphic Design BFA Program

Regina Gardner Milan Lecturer Department of Art & Design University of Massachusetts Lowell Evolving the BFA capstone project to develop professional competencies for emerging designers. Encouraging students to develop projects that address their competencies and those that they need to develop. A year-long course sequence encouraging extensive creative exploration while working within developed constraints that … Continue reading “Rethinking the Capstone in a Graphic Design BFA Program”

Designfulness: Teaching Designers to Mindfully Create a Sustainable Future

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer Chair, Department of Art + Architecture  Program Director & Associate Professor, Design University of San Francisco In today’s culture technology is speeding up our lives, creating the perceived need for everything to be faster, newer, better, sleeker, now!  As we train the next wave of designers, they are faced with these challenges … Continue reading “Designfulness: Teaching Designers to Mindfully Create a Sustainable Future”

Theorizing Fashiontech as an Emerging Design Practice

Anne Galperin Associate Professor Graphic Design SUNY New Paltz Like so many other endeavors contemporary designers find themselves involved in, fashiontech (a marriage of conventional apparel and electronic/digital technology for fun and/or function) unites a variety of professionals in collaboration. Experience and interaction designers, industrial and fashion designers, engineers, programmers and users all have a … Continue reading “Theorizing Fashiontech as an Emerging Design Practice”

Teaching Inclusive Design: Design with Everyone in Mind

Ziddi Msangi Associate Professor Graphic Design UMass Dartmouth The World Health Organization defines disability as “a contextual variable”. One is more or less disabled by their interaction with a physical environment, social environment, or institutional environment. Inclusive Design aims to “reduce the experience of disability and enhance everyone’s experience and performance. Universal design standards were … Continue reading “Teaching Inclusive Design: Design with Everyone in Mind”

Experiments in Building Empathy and Revealing Bias

Rebecca Mushtare Associate Professor Of Web Design & Multimedia State University Of New York At Oswego When left to our own devices, we unconsciously design for the audience we know best—ourselves. Although some traditional-aged college students have had travel opportunities or exposure to diverse cultures and communities, most still have limited life experience, which magnifies this … Continue reading “Experiments in Building Empathy and Revealing Bias”

COIL & Preparing Global Designers

Sean Nixon Associate Professor of Art Program Coordinator, Design Program Art, Design, Fashion, Music, Theater & Communication Dept. SUNY Ulster In 2015, the top 225 design firms generated $65 billion in revenue from projects outside their home countries, according to ENR, Engineering News Report. The REAL World Classroom TM Design Program at SUNY Ulster is … Continue reading “COIL & Preparing Global Designers”

Designing for Autonomous Machines

Alex Liebergesell Associate Professor  Graduate Communications Design Pratt Institute
 “The Future of Employment”, published by the Oxford Martin School in 2013, predicts significant displacement of human labor forces over the coming two decades, as computerization and robotics continue to migrate from routine manual to non-routine cognitive tasks. While designers fare well in the study’s susceptibility-to-displacement … Continue reading “Designing for Autonomous Machines”

Facilitating a Culture that Celebrates Experimentation and Addresses the Fear of Failure through Assessment

Alex Girard Assistant Professor Graphic Design Art Department Southern Connecticut State University At Southern Connecticut State University, it has been observed that students pursuing a design degree are entering the program with a background dominated by a philosophy in which success equals providing a pre-defined, correct answer to a problem. This approach does not prepare … Continue reading “Facilitating a Culture that Celebrates Experimentation and Addresses the Fear of Failure through Assessment”