Affiliated Society Business Meeting

Design Incubation’s 10th Anniversary (2014-2024), CAA 112th Annual Conference

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.

Designing Your Research Agenda (DYRA) 3.1

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.

https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/germanistik/digitalcultures/forschung/research-projects/the-world-as-a-design-problem

Designing Your Research Agenda 2.1

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/

#designhistory #designthinking #designpedagogy #designtheory #designresearch

Exploring the Research Map: Thoughts on Design Research Investigations

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.

Designing Your Research Agenda 1.2

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.

Instagram: @blacvoice

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

Instagram: @whatliat
Twitter: @whatliat

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.

More at www.synopticoffice.com

Instagram: @synopticoffice

Let’s Talk Teaching Strategies and Pedagogy for Design and Art Direction

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

Breakout Room Facilitators:

  • Anne H. Berry, Cleveland State University
  • Deborah Ceballos, Kean University
  • John Delacruz, San Jose State University
  • Neil Ward, Drake University
  • Li Zhang, Purdue University

Design Writing 101: Becoming a Design Writer

An AIGA DEC + Design Incubation Workshop with Robin Landa and Aaris Sherin

Wednesday, March 24, 2021
3:00 pm EST
ZOOM: https://aiga.zoom.us/my/aiga.educators?pwd=bS83N09GTFVodWIzK210Qi9BYWFnQT09

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.

Connecting Scholars, Building Community, Design Research Network(ing) | Design Incubation Affiliated Society Meeting

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)
Online ZOOM 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.

Penina Acayo Laker
Assistant Professor, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University St. Louis
Co-Principal Investigator, Mobility for All by All

Penina’s research centers around topics that utilize a human-centered approach to solving social problems.


Registration required. Please use your institutional email to register.

Response and Adaptation for Online Teaching 1.0

A Moderated Discussion for Educators
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
1pm EST (10am PST)

Wednesday, March 25, 2020 
1pm EST / 10am PST

Hosted by
Lisa Hammershaimb
Associate Dean of Curriculum
Independence University

Are you new to online and remote instruction? Do you have questions or concerns? Join a live Q&A Session with educators who have experience working in both synchronous and asynchronous online learning environments. Ask questions and learn about best practices. Hear about the range of tools these educators use to create engaging online design courses. Join our community and connect with other educators as we discuss the tips, tricks and challenges of working in the online learning environment. 

Who should attend: 

Educators who are transitioning to a fully online learning environment for the first time. Those of you who have taught online or hybrid classes in the past are encouraged to take part and share tips and tricks. Think you may have to start teaching online? Come and hear what others have found to be helpful. All are welcome!   

(Chat discussion can be found here: https://social.designincubation.com/topic/259-response-and-adaptation-for-online-teaching-10/ )

Panel participants: 

Lisa Hammershaimb

Dr. Lisa Hammershaimb is a visual designer and design educator whose research investigates community, presence, and the porous borders between here/there + digital/physical.A 2018 graduate of the EdD program in Distance Education from Athabasca University, Lisa’s dissertation focused on how design educators use the internet to decentralize and extend studio pedagogy. Through her work, Lisa aspires to inspire design educators to be brave in the face of complexity and to build inclusive structures, where all participants can learn how to navigate and thrive in an increasingly information-abundant world.

Alex Girard

Alex Girard is a graphic designer and design educator who believes in the power of design to connect people to ideas, visually. His recent work focuses on developing meaningful assessment practices that define and help to constructively evolve curriculum, rather than exclusively evaluate it. Throughout his career, he has worked to adopt technology at the forefront of the field, and is currently exploring virtual course management systems and other online tools in an effort to create virtual collaborative spaces. Alex coordinates the Graphic Design program at Southern Connecticut State University, and serves as the Director of Peer Review for Design Incubation. 

Aaris Sherin

Aaris Sherin is a design educator, researcher and writer. She is a professor of graphic design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Her teaching focuses on using blended hybrid models of instruction in FTF classes as well as teaching courses in a fully online learning environment. Sherin’s newest teaching strategies include adding synchronistic modules to online courses as well as working with course management tools and other software to create innovative frameworks for critique in online studio and lecture style courses.

Mitch Goldstein

Mitch Goldstein is a designer, artist, and educator based in upstate New York, where he is an Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, teaching in the College of Art and Design. He has a fine arts practice focusing on a variety of digital and analog materials and both writes and speaks about art and design education, pedagogy, and creative practice. His courses frequently mix analog and digital making, as well as using both in-person and online teaching and critique tools and methods. He received his MFA in Design/Visual Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts, and his BFA in Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design. He is currently pursuing another Master’s Degree in Furniture Design from RIT. 

Dennis Cheatham

Dennis Cheatham is the Graduate Director of xdMFA, a transdisciplinary distance-learning MFA in Experience Design at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He has been teaching online and hybrid courses in experience design and design research since 2016. Dennis has implemented pedagogical tools to facilitate highly engaged distance learning, including Experience Points, the Risk Bonus, single-point rubrics, Slack, and PACES: A Multiple Intelligences Model for Design Education. Dennis has used his background in web development and audio/video production to develop accessible, responsive templates for Canvas LMS and engaging feedback videos and tutorials to simulate the face-to-face experience for learners.

Supporting the Chicago Design Community | Design Incubation Affiliated Society Meeting @CAA

Identifying strategies, filling gaps in organizational offerings, andcollaboratively expand reach of local organizations.

 Friday, February 14, 2020
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Hilton Chicago – Lower Level – Salon C-1

Design Incubation will host the College Art Association (CAA) conference business meeting for “Supporting the Chicago Design Community | Design Incubation Affiliated” at the Hilton Chicago on Friday, February 14th from 12:30–1:30 pm. There is no cost to attend this meeting.

Leaders from midwest design organizations including The Society of Typographic Arts, IxDA, AIGA, The New Media Caucus, Chicago Speculative Futures, The Society of Typographic Aficionados, Hexagon, The Chicago Design Archive, SEGD, and others will discuss industry, academic, and educational needs in the region. We hope this conversation will identify strategies for filling gaps in our organizational offerings, find opportunities for Design Incubation to support these long-standing groups, and collaboratively expand all of our reach.

Design Incubation is a volunteer academic organization whose focus and mission is the facilitation of research and scholarship in communication design. Our aim is to foster discussion and collaboration among academics and industry professionals. We are a resource for those working and studying within the field.