An Affiliated Society Meeting at the CAA 113th Annual Conference
Affiliated Society Meeting at the CAA 113th Annual Conference, New York City
Friday, February 14, 2025 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM New York Hilton Midtown – 2nd Floor – Murray Hill West
This is a hybrid event. Attendance is free to anyone in person. (No conference fee is required.) To attend virtually, complete the form below to receive details for the virtual login.
Join Design Incubation for a workshop on Writing an Academic Abstract. We will provide examples, recommendations, best practices, and ideas on crafting a written synopsis of your communication design research for submission to conferences, journals, invited lectures, grant and book proposals.
Please complete the form and let us know how we can facilitate your academic abstract writing efforts. This event is suited for junior faculty new to research and publication. It is also an opportunity for senior faculty to discover community and feedback on their scholarly endeavors.
Design scholars and researchers discuss various aspects of their research agendas
Friday, November 8, 2024 1:00pPM Eastern / 12:00PM Central Virtual Event
Designing Your Research Agenda is a panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss various aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialog regarding multiple challenges of discovering one’s design research inquiry. Designing Your Research Agenda is an ongoing design research event series.
Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:
How did you determine your research agenda (high-level timeline of your career/trajectory)
How do you define research and why do you think it matters/for society, the field, and yourself?
How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
If you were going to position your work within a category, would you say your research addresses: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, or something else?
What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?
Moderators
Jessica Barness Kent State University
Heather Snyder Quinn DePaul University
Biographies
Jason Alejandro is a Puerto Rican graphic designer and Associate Professor of Graphic Design at The College of New Jersey. His academic research explores intersections of cultural identity, design history, and critical pedagogy, with a focus on how these topics shape visual communication. Alejandro is particularly interested in using graphic design to address social and cultural narratives, including underrepresented communities in design education. His work spans writing, publishing, and visual projects, including contributions to both academic and professional design discussions on identity and collaboration in design practice. He is horrified at how well ChatGPT generated this bio, even if it is somewhat generic.
Yoon Soo Lee is a Professor of Art and Design. She has been teaching at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth since 2001, and also at Vermont College of Fine Arts since 2011.
Yoon Soo’s practice moves around three core areas of study: the art of pedagogy, how to work in dialogue cross-discipline, and how to create art and design that is based on self-knowledge. These investigations have led to presentations at the AIGA Educators Conference, UCDA Design Educators Conference, grants from the National Institute of Health, presentations at the Cognitive Science Society and papers such as “Functional Criticism in the Graphic Design Classroom” published in “Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal”.
Yoon Soo studied at Seoul National University where she received her BFA and MFA, and she also studied at Western Michigan University where she received her second MFA in graphic design.
D.J. Trischler is an Assistant Professor of Communication Design for the University of Cincinnati’s Ullman School of Design in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. He teaches typography, design research methods, and an introduction to design lecture. His research addresses the “dis-placed” sentiments familiar to the contemporary human experience, experimenting with possibilities to use design to “place” people in their surrounding ecologies. Through his research, he aims to increase place attachment, a sense of community and belonging, grow neighborliness and community engagement, and ultimately strengthen quality of life and well-being. D.J.’s work in this niche originated from his graduate thesis research into Neighborhood-Centered Design.
Come join us during the CAA 112th Annual Conference to network and celebrate our 10th anniversary.
Thursday, February 15, 2024 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Central Meeting Room: Lake Ontario Location: Hilton Chicago
This admission-free event welcomes all those who have participated in our past events, conferences, fellowships, awards competitions and anyone new who is passionate about research, scholarship, and education in communication design.
We will discuss some of the activities and events that have shaped the organization from its inception to today, what we have planned for this year and future activities.
If you would like to volunteer, get involved, host a colloquium or other activities, come introduce yourself. Let us know what is missing in your experiences as designers, educators, and researchers. All are welcome.
Please visit the About section of the website to read about those who have helped to form and establish the organization, and our ongoing mission to support academics, educators, and designers.
Design scholars and researchers discuss various aspects of their research agendas
Friday, November 17, 2023 12pm Eastern / 11am Central Virtual Event
Designing Your Research Agenda is a panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss various aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialog regarding multiple challenges of discovering one’s design research inquiry. Designing Your Research Agenda is an ongoing design research event series.
Ayako Maruyama (RISD)
Nate Matteson (DePaul University)
Johanna Mehl (TU Dresden)
Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:
How did you determine your research agenda (high-level timeline of your career/trajectory)
How do you define research and why do you think it matters/for society, the field, and yourself?
How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
If you were going to position your work within a category, would you say your research addresses: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, or something else?
What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?
Moderators
Jessica Barness Kent State University
Heather Snyder Quinn DePaul University
Biographies
Ayako Maruyama Rhode Island School of Design
Ayako Maruyama (she/her) is a Filipina-Japanese designer, educator, and illustrator whose practice revolves around intentional collaboration, reflection, collective recovery, maintenance, and repair within the design domain. Working with organizers, artists, designers, students, and planners, Ayako’s involvement with the Design Studio for Social Intervention commenced in 2012. Notably, she recently co-authored and co-illustrated the published book, “Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice.”
Ayako and her team at the Design Studio for Social Intervention focus on creating public engagement strategies that prioritize community development without displacement, along with reimagining public spaces at the Design Gym. With a rich background, Ayako has conducted numerous zine workshops, contributed as a faculty member at Boston University’s City Planning and Urban Affairs program since 2013, and initiated the annual Experience of Public Engagement studio at RISD in 2017.
Having served as an Urbanist in Residence and currently being part of the Collective Recovery Team at the University of Orange, Ayako holds a position as a Board Member at the institution. Additionally, she serves as an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she imparts knowledge through teaching graduate thesis studio, foundational, and advanced design studios.
Nate Matteson DePaul University
Nathan Matteson is an Associate professor at DePaul University’s School of Design; a co-director of DePaul’s ‘Scandinavia: design, landscape, and society’ study abroad program; a researcher with the Center for robust decision-making in climate and energy policy at the University of Chicago; and a principal and designer at Obstructures. He is a ruthlessly collaborative designer whose work merrily ignores the perceived boundaries among disciplines, and is currently engaged with dead Swedish architects, guitars, the US energy sector, obstacles, and objects in the distance. His practice situates itself at an intersection amongst intersections, dead ends, superhighways, and goat paths, wringing its metaphorical hands over the relationships among computation, intention, materiality, and immateriality.
Johanna Mehl TU Dresden
Johanna Mehl (she/her) is a designer, scholar, and educator interested in the politics and relations that take shape through and around design practices. She holds a B.A. in Communication Design and an M.A. in Art and Design Studies. Besides her artistic and curatorial practice, she has taught in the fields of digital media, culture studies, and design theory at different design schools across Europe. She is an editorial board member of the Design+Posthumanism Network and part of the research group Against Catastrophe. She holds research fellowship at TU Dresden where she is a PhD candidate at the Chair for Digital Cultures. Her dissertation is about design responses to the climate crisis and stems from critiques of design that acknowledge its entanglements not only with the material realities, but also the geopolitical, psychological, and social conditions of climate change.
Design scholars and researchers discuss various aspects of their research agendas
Friday, January 27, 2023 2PM EST Online ZOOM Event
Designing Your Research Agenda is a panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss various aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialog regarding multiple challenges of discovering one’s design research inquiry. Design Incubation will also be discussing some of their ongoing work with the mission and focus of supporting design research. Designing Your Research Agenda is an ongoing design research event series.
Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:
How did you determine your research agenda (high-level timeline of your career/trajectory)
How do you define research and why do you think it matters/for society, the field, and yourself?
How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
If you were going to position your work within a category, would you say your research addresses: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, or something else?
What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?
PANELISTS
Kate Hollenbach Assistant Professor of Emergent Digital Practices University of Denver
Lisa Maione Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Kansas City Art Institute
Matthew Wizinsky Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director University of Cincinnati PhD researcher, Carnegie Mellon University
Moderators
Jessica Barness Kent State University
Heather Snyder Quinn Washington University in St. Louis
Biographies
Kate Hollenbach Assistant Professor of Emergent Digital Practices University of Denver
Kate Hollenbach is an artist, programmer, and educator based in Denver, Colorado. She creates video and interactive works examining the language and vocabulary of user interfaces with a focus on user habits, data collection, and surveillance. Her art practice is informed by years of professional experience and as an interface designer and product developer. She has presented and exhibited work in venues across the United States, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SIGGRAPH, and INST-INT. Kate holds an MFA from UCLA Design Media Arts and a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Emergent Digital Practices at University of Denver and serves on the Board of Directors for the Processing Foundation. https://www.katehollenbach.com/
Lisa Maione Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Kansas City Art Institute
Lisa Maione is a designer, artist, and educator based in Kansas City, MO. Her research concerns the nature of the screen as a material agent that affects perceptions of histories, social economy, and the self in relation to others. As an interdisciplinary artist, she is interested in emphasizing the residue of memory through assembling and structuring relationships between objects. As a designer, she is interested in how to activate and enact “graphic design methods” outside of commercial exchange as a primary context. By displacing design-like methods into vulnerable states outside of capital and inside emotional visual vortexes, aberrations and distortions emerge and are made palpable as affective, productive output. Lisa is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the Kansas City Art Institute. https://lisamaione.com/
Matthew Wizinsky Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director University of Cincinnati, and PhD Researcher Carnegie Mellon University
Matthew Wizinsky is a designer, researcher, educator, and author on contemporary issues in design practice and research. He has over 20 years of professional experience in graphic, interactive, exhibition, and experiential design. He is an Associate Professor & Graduate Program Director in the Ullman School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, PhD researcher in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University, and Associate Editor for the oldest peer-reviewed design journal, Visible Language. He is the author of Design after Capitalism (MIT Press, 2022). https://mwizinsky.net/
An Affiliated Society Meeting at the 110th Annual CAA Conference
Join Design Incubation – Business Meeting on Thursday, March 3, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM at the 110th Annual CAA Conference. Free and open to the public.
Design Incubation Directors Jessica Barness, Liz DeLuna, Camila Afanador-Llach, and Dan Wong will moderate a discussion on the mapping of design research and its development trajectory.
Design Incubation recently launched a new initiative to map current activities in Communication Design Research and Scholarship (R&S). We kicked off this project at the international Design Research Society (DRS) Festival of Emergence 2021, and workshopped a second phase with AIGA DEC November 2021. This map is a collaborative, living, visual document that will further establish historical precedents and future trajectories for Communication Design R&S. Join us as we share progress, generate dialogue, and continue to shape this project.
Friday, October 29, 2021
4PM EST
Online ZOOM Event
Designing Your Research Agenda is an panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss various aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialog regarding multiple challenges discovering one’s design research inquiry. Design Incubation will also be discussing some of their ongoing work with the mission and focus of supporting design research. Designing Your Research Agenda is an ongoing design research event series.
Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists
How did you determine your research agenda (high level timeline of your career/trajectory)
How do you define research and why do you think it matters — for society, the field, yourself?
How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
How do you position your research: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UX/UI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, or something else?
What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?
Moderators
Jessica Barness and Heather Snyder Quinn
PANELISTS
Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton Associate Professor of Graphic Design North Carolina State University and Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts
Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at North Carolina State University. She has taught graphic design at Southeastern Louisiana University and Typography at Loyola Marymount University. She is also a faculty in the low-residency MFA program in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts. In addition, Arceneaux is the principal at Blacvoice Design, a studio specializing in branding, electronic media, identity, illustration, print, and publication design for educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and small businesses. Arceneaux’s research focuses on discovering Black people omitted from the graphic design history canon. Recently, her research is focused on Black women who have made significant contributions to the graphic design profession. She is also interested in the visual representation of Black people in the media and popular culture, primarily through the lens of stereotypes.
Liat Berdugo Associate Professor of Art and Architecture University of San Francisco
Liat Berdugo is an artist and writer whose work investigates embodiment, labor, and militarization in relation to capitalism, technological utopianism, and the Middle East. Her work has been exhibited and screened at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), MoMA PS1 (New York), Transmediale (Berlin), V2_Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam), and The Wrong Biennale (online), among others. Her writing appears in Rhizome, Temporary Art Review, Real Life, Places, and The Institute for Network Cultures, among others, and her latest book is The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East (Bloomsbury/I.B.Tauris, 2021). She is one half of the art collective, Anxious to Make, and is the co-founder of the Living Room Light Exchange, a monthly new media art series. Berdugo received an MFA from RISD and a BA from Brown University. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art + Architecture at the University of San Francisco. Berdugo lives and works in Oakland, CA. More at www.liatberdugo.com
Caspar Lam Assistant Professor Director of the BFA Communication Design Program Parsons School of Design
Caspar Lam is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the BFA Communication Design Program at Parsons. He is also a partner at Synoptic Office, an award-winning design consultancy working globally with leading cultural, civic, and business organizations. His research and practice explore the systematic relationships among graphic design, data, language, and their influence on visual culture. Caspar holds an MFA from Yale and degrees in biology and design from the University of Texas at Austin. He formerly led design and digital strategy at Artstor, a Mellon-funded non-profit developing digital products related to metadata and publishing for institutions like Harvard and Cornell. Adobe, AIGA, and the ID Annual Design Review have recognized his work. He has been a visiting critic at the Hong Kong Design Institute and served as an Adjunct Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University ́s GSAPP. He sits on the board of directors of AIGA NY.
Design education strategies and pedagogical methods for remote, online, hybrid, and face-to-face learning
June 16, 2021 3pm – 4:30pm
This event offers the opportunity for an open discussion of successful activities and challenging teaching scenarios during these chaotic academic transitions. Come join us to discuss your experiences with design education strategies and pedagogical methods for remote, online, virtual, hybrid, and asynchronous learning. Ideas for discussion include conventional vs. unconventional instructional methodologies, student warm-ups, interstitial exercises, laboratory assignments, minor and major course projects, critiques, rubrics, collaboration, discussions, challenges, and serendipity. Share your experiences and stories.
Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor in the Michael Graves College at Kean University and author of the newly published 4th edition of Advertising by Design(Wiley) and 6th edition of Graphic Design Solutions(Cengage) will moderate this workshop.
Presentation and Directives Robin Landa, Kean University
Authors Robin Landa and Aaris Sherin will share their motivation for writing, talk about the importance of precedence and literature reviews, discuss different approaches to design writing, answer questions, and offer advice for new design writers. This event is for design educators who want to incorporate writing into their research agenda. Participants will identify the challenges they face approaching their writing projects.
Robin and Aaris will cite publishers for submissions. Join Robin and Aaris for this workshop as we kick off the first in a series dealing with writing, research and getting published.
Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor in the Michael Graves College at Kean University, facilitates the Design Incubation Fellowship book group and is the author of numerous books, including Graphic Design Solutions, 6e, Advertising by Design, 4e, and Nimble: Thinking Creatively in the Digital Age.
Aaris Sherin, Professor of Graphic Design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, Director of Fellowships at Design Incubation and is the author of a number of books including her most recent publications Introduction to Graphic Design and Sustainable Thinking: Ethical Approaches to Design and Design Management.
This open forum will have design scholars and researchers discuss various research topics, offer their ideas, discuss opportunities for contributors/participants/collaborators, and open dialog regarding multiple challenges within the design research field.
Friday, February 12, 2021 12:30 PM Eastern Time (the US and Canada) OnlineZOOM Event
This is the Affiliated Society meeting of the 109th CAA Annual Conference. The meeting is open to non-conference attendees as well. Please register in advance for this event.
Overview:
Please join us at The College Art Association (CAA) Design Incubation Affiliated Society meeting | Connecting Scholars, Building Community, Design Research Network(ing) virtually on Friday, February 12, from 12:30-1:30 pm (EST).
Design Incubation is a volunteer academic organization whose focus and mission are facilitating research and scholarship in design. We aim to foster discussion and collaboration among academics and industry professionals. We are a resource for those working and studying within the field.
This open forum will have design scholars and researchers discuss various research topics, offer their ideas, discuss opportunities for contributors/participants/collaborators, and open dialog regarding multiple challenges within the design research field. Design Incubation will also be discussing some of their ongoing work with the mission/focus of supporting design research.
Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:
How did you determine your research agenda?
How do your dept and institution define and support the work you do?
How would you describe/categorize your dept and institution?
If you were going to position your research within a category, would you say your work addresses: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, something else?
MODERATOR:
Dan Wong Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology, CUNY Co-founder/Executive Director, Design Incubation
Dan’s research considers the forms and methodologies of communication design research and innovates through the practice of communication design.
PANELISTS:
Heather Snyder Quinn Assistant Professor, DePaul University’s School of Design Director of Design Futures, Design Incubation
Heather’s research uses design fiction and speculative design to question the ethics of emerging technologies, challenge technocratic power, and imagine possible futures.
Jessica Barness Associate Professor, School of Visual Communication Design, Kent State University Director of Research Initiatives, Design Incubation
Jessica’s research focuses on social media, publication practices, and the design of scholarship, and how these relate to issues of power and representation.
Ayako Takase Assistant Professor of Industrial Design, Rhode Island School of Design Director of Master Program Co-Founder, Observatory Design
Ayako’s design research focuses on evolving relationships between people, objects, and technology in the context of work.
