Extended Deadline: Design Incubation Awards 2021

Check it out! We’ve extended the deadlines.

Design Incubation Communication Design Awards 2021

Has it been a hectic year for you too? Phew. And we’re not sure how this autumn will go. But we do know that there has been some very fascinating work produced recently. Great published works, creative and experimental projects, innovative teaching methods, and important designed service initiatives.

We’ve decided we’re going to break some rules and extend our own deadlines. The annual international Design Incubation Communication Design Awards 2021 have extended their nomination and entry period to Wednesday, December 1, 2021. 

We hope you will enter your work, or nominate the work of a colleague or graduate student. There’s lots of really great stuff out there, and our friends want to see it! Help us shine the light on these and offer you some recognition.

What is the $20 entry fee for? There are lots of hidden costs when running an all-volunteer organization. Even though most of them are relatively small, they add up to more than you would think. However, if this is the only thing stopping you from entering your work, please don’t let it be. Submit anyway. It’s on us. We are not motivated by profits at Design Incubation, we are motivated by seeing you succeed 🙂

Mapping the Landscape of Research and Scholarly Activities in Communication Design

Design Research Society’s Festival of Emergence.
Friday, Sept 10 at 8am EST

Jessica Barness, Heather Synder Quinn, Dan Wong, Liz DeLuna

Facilitators: Laura Rossi Garcia, Nathan Matteson, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Matt Wizinsky

https://drsfestivalofemergence.org/

This moment requires a potentially radical pivot towards reconsidering research and scholarship (R&S) in Communication Design. Academic institutions look to the disciplines for their knowledge and theoretical development within the field. They also expect established definitions and norms for research and scholarship, as the ways we bring forth novel work into thinking beyond the status quo. Therefore R&S must be defined by the discipline to ensure consensus among peers and thought leaders and subsequently recognized by institutions based upon their missions. We could be doing this better. The goal of this Moment is to generate a living, visual document to further establish historical precedents and future trajectories for Communication Design R&S. As the landscape broadens with new technological innovations, global crises force us to adopt new ways to share and communicate ideas and establish new methods, projects, and theses. This collaborative map will help to frame subsequent public discussions.

Outline: This Moment is part presentation, part workshop, and part coffee break.

The agenda will be as follows:

  • Brief introduction by the proposers
  • Proposers present a series of prompts
  • Groups are given access to a Miro online whiteboard
  • Full group collaboratively discussing a holistic map of Communication Design R&S

Colloquium 8.2: CAA Conference 2021 Call for Submissions

110th CAA Annual Conference, Virtual.
Deadline for abstract submissions: September 16, 2021.

We invite abstract submissions on presentation topics relevant to Communication Design research. Submissions should fall into one or more of the following areas: scholarly research, case studies, creative practice, or design pedagogy. We welcome proposals on a variety of topics across the field of communication design.

Accepted researchers will be required to produce a 6-minute videotaped presentation that will be published on the Design Incubation channel. The CAA conference session will consist of a moderated discussion of those presentations.

Submit an abstract of 300 words using the Design Incubation abstract submission form found here:
https://designincubation.com/call-for-submissions/

Submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed. Reviewers’ feedback will be returned. Accepted presentation abstracts will be published on the Design Incubation website.

109th CAA Annual Conference
Thursday, March 3, 2022, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM (EST)
Live Sessions Online

This is a virtual conference event. Presenters will follow the basic membership and fee requirements of CAA.

We are accepting abstracts for presentations now until September 16, 2021.

Colloquium 8.1: Seton Hall University, Call for Submissions

Call for design research abstracts. Deadline: Saturday, July 24, 2021.

Submission Deadline: Saturday, July 24, 2021.

Event date: Saturday, October 23, 2021.

We invite designers—practitioners and educators—to submit abstracts of design research. This is a virtual event format.

Double-blind peer-reviewed colloquium abstracts will be published online. Please review the articles, Quick Start Guide for Writing Abstracts and Writing an Academic Research Abstract: For Communication Design Scholars prior to submitting.

Accepted presentations will be videotaped by the researchers and published online on the Design Incubation channel which is due by October 2, 2021. A moderated discussion will be held virtually on October 23, 2021. We encourage all attendees to watch the videos in advance of the moderated discussion. This event is open to all interested in Communication Design research.

Hosted by Christine Lhowe, Assistant Professor and Christine Krus, Professor of Art & Design, College of Communication and the Arts, Seton Hall University.

Presentations format is Pecha Kucha.

For more details, see the colloquia details and description. Abstracts can be submitted online for peer review.

CFP: 2021 Design Incubation Communication Design Awards

Call for Nominations and Entries for the 2021 Design Incubation Communication Design Awards for Educators and Graduate Students

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2021 awards for communication design educators and graduate students in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field. 

Nominations

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators and graduate students in our field and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 1, 2021. 

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted from June 1–December 1, 2021. Complete the online entry form with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words)

Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents)

Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant)

Curriculum vitae of applicant/s

The 2021 Design Incubation Awards: Graduate Student Work 

If you are faculty advising graduate students please encourage students to enter the competition by nominating them for the awards.  The future of communication design education begins with the work of future faculty and researchers in the field of Communication Design. Recognition of graduate student work will be grouped and reviewed in the categories of scholarship, creative projects, service, and teaching. Graduate students currently enrolled in graduate design programs are invited to submit scholarship, creative projects, service projects, teaching innovations they completed during graduate study or up to one year after graduation. 

2021 Jury

Gail Anderson, School of Visual Arts, New York

John Bowers, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

Lesley-Ann Noel, North Carolina State University, North Carolina

Maria Rogal, University of Florida, Florida

Lucille Tenazas, Parsons School of Design, New York

Teal Triggs (Chair), Royal College of Art, London

Biographies

Gail Anderson

Gail Anderson is an NYC-based designer, educator, and writer. She is Chair of BFA Design and BFA Advertising at the School of Visual Arts and the creative director at Visual Arts Press. Anderson has served as senior art director at Rolling Stone, creative director of design at SpotCo, and as a designer at The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and Vintage Books. She has taught at SVA for thirty years and has coauthored 15 books on design, typography, and illustration with the fabulous Steven Heller. 

Anderson serves on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee for the US Postal Service and the advisory boards of Poster House and The One Club for Creativity. She is an AIGA Medalist and the 2018 recipient of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Lifetime Achievement Award for Design. Her work is represented in the Library of Congress’s permanent collections, the Milton Glaser Design Archives, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

John Bowers

John Bowers is chair of the Visual Communication Design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through making, writing, and teaching, he explores issues of individual and collective identity. His making practice repurposes newspapers from public to private record, and billboard paper into forms that address their underlying targeting strategies and have been sold through Printed Matter. He worked as a Senior Identity Designer at Landor (San Francisco) during the dot-com bubble. His professional work has been published in 365: AIGA, Communication Arts, ID, and Graphis. His writing includes “A Lesson from Spirograph,” (Design Observer), Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function, Second Edition (Wiley), and Visual Communication Design Teaching Strategies, which isposted on the AIGA Educators Community website. He has been a curriculum consultant and visiting designer in the US, Canada, and Sweden.

Lesley-Ann Noel

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel is a faculty member at the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She has a BA in Industrial Design from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, in Curitiba, Brazil, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago and a Ph.D. in Design from North Carolina State University. 

Lesley-Ann practices design through emancipatory, critical, and anti-hegemonic lenses,  focusing on equity, social justice, and the experiences of people who are often excluded from design research, primarily in the area of social innovation, education and public health. She also attempts to promote greater critical awareness among designers and design students by introducing critical theory concepts and vocabulary into the design studio e.g. through The Designer’s Critical Alphabet.

She is co-Chair of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society.

Maria Rogal

Maria Rogal is a Professor of Graphic Design and founding director of MFA in Design & Visual Communications at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative codesigning with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to support autonomy and self-determination. After over a decade working with partners in MĂ©xico, she cofounded Codesigning Equitable Futures to foster respectful collaborations among the university and local community in Gainesville, Florida. She continues to speak and write about social and codesign, recently presenting at Pivot 2020, and co-authored “CoDesigning for Development,” which appears in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. Her research has been funded by AIGA, Sappi, and Fulbright programs, among others, and her creative design work has been featured in national and international juried exhibitions.

Lucille Tenazas

Lucille Tenazas is an educator and graphic designer based in New York and San Francisco. Her work is at the intersection of typography and linguistics, with design that reflects complex and poetic means of visual expression. She is the Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design and was the Associate Dean in the School of Art, Media and Technology from 2013-2020. She taught at California College of the Arts (CCA) for 20 years, where she developed the MFA Design program with an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on form-giving, teaching and leadership.

Lucille was the national president of the AIGA from 1996-98 and was awarded the AIGA Medal in 2013 for her lifetime contribution to design practice and outstanding leadership in design education. She received the National Design Award for Communication Design by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in 2002. Originally from Manila, the Philippines, Lucille studied at CCA and received her MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Teal Triggs (Chair)

Teal Triggs is Professor of Graphic Design and leads on the MPhil/PhD programme in the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London. As a graphic design historian, critic and educator she has lectured and broadcast widely and her writings have appeared in numerous edited books and international design publications. Triggs’s research focuses on design pedagogy, criticism, self-publishing, and feminism. She is Associate Editor of Design Issues (MIT Press) and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Communication Design (Taylor & Francis/ico-D). Her recent books include: co-editor with Professor Leslie Atzmon of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson)and the children’s book The School of Art (Wide Eyed Editions) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is Fellow of the Design Research Society, International Society of Typographic Designers and the Royal Society of Arts.

Design Incubation Writing Fellowship 2021

A three-day virtual workshop facilitating academic writing and publishing for designers.

Day 1
Thursday, June 3, 2021

10:00am–11:00amIntroductions + Icebreaker
11:00am–12:00pmLive Q&A: Submitting a Book Proposal/Manuscript with Louise Baird-Smith
12:00pm–12:15pmMini Break
12:15pm–1:30pmExercise: What, Why, and How We Write
1:30pm–2:30pmLunch (on your own)
2:30pm–3:15pmPresentation: Where Writing Meets Publishing
Aaris Sherin
3:15pm – 3:30pmMini Break
3:30pm – 6:30pmWorkshop: How to Think and Talk About Writing
Maggie Taft

Day 2
Friday, June 4, 2021

10:00am–10:30amPart 2 of How to Think and Talk About Writing
Maggie Taft
10:30am–12:45pmGroup Sessions
12:45pm–1:45pmLunch (on your own)
1:45pm–3:30pmGroup Sessions
3:30pm–3:45pmMini Break
3:45pm–4:30pmWriting for Journals with Visible Language
4:30pm –5:30pmPresentation: Public and Academic Scholarship
Liat Berdugo
5:30pm –6:30pmWriting for Journals with Design and Culture

Day 3
Saturday, June 5, 2021

10:00am–11:00amPresentation: A Life in Writing: Contracts, Agents and Monetary Consideration
Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor, Kean University
Author over twenty books
11:00am–1:30pmGroup Sessions
1:30pm–2:30pmLunch (on your own)
2:30pm–4:30pmGroup Sessions
4:30pm–6:00pmSharing Session / Wrap Up
Please note: This schedule is tentative and is subject to change

2021 Design Incubation Fellows

Articles Track

Arlene Brit, Associate Professor, Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Minneapolis, Minnesota

Lisa Elzey Mercer Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

Katie Krcmarik, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Lincoln, Nebraska

Shreyas Krishnan, Assistant Professor, Washington University. St. Louis, Missouri

Gurkan Maruf Mihci, Assistant Professor, Indiana University–Purdue University. Indianapolis, Indiana and Ph.D. student, Ozyegin University, Istanbul

Omar Sosa-Tzec, Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University. San Francisco, California

Lisa Jayne Willard, Assistant Professor, The University of Tampa. Tampa, Florida

Neil Ward, Associate Professor, Drake University. Des Moines, Iowa

Books Track

Dennis Cheatham, Assistant Professor,Miami University. Oxford, Ohio

Meaghan Dee, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech University. Blacksburg, Virginia

Jessica Jacobs, Associate Professor, Columbia College. Chicago, Illinois

Kyuha Shim, Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

Ann McDonald, Associate Professor, Northeastern University. Boston, Massachusetts

Reviews Track

Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton, Associate Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University and Vermont College of Fine Arts

Breuna Baine, Associate Professor, Auburn University. Montgomery, Alabama

Maria Smith Bohannon, Assistant Professor, Oakland University. Rochester, Michigan

Erica Holeman, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas. Denton, Texas

Dan Vlahos, Assistant Professor, Merrimack College. North Andover, Massachusetts 

Design Incubation Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University

A Virtual Conference Saturday, April 10, 2021, 1PM EST.

Presentations will be published on the Design Incubation YouTube Channel after April 3, 2021. Virtual Conference will be held online on Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 1pm EST.

Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University (#DI2021apr) will be held online. Registration for this event below.

Virtually hosted by Camila Afanador-Llach, Assistant Professor + Graduate Coordinator, Graphic Design, the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University. This event is open to all interested in Communication Design research.

Please view research presentations before attending the moderated discussion on Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Presentations

Forensic Abstraction in Israel/Palestine: the Graphic Representations of Bodies in Citizen Media
Liat Berdugo
Assistant Professor
University of San Francisco

The Spectacle of Violence: Illustrating Surpanakha’s Mutilation
Shreyas R Krishnan
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Washington University in St.Louis

Visual and Verbal Communication on Sustainable Packaging As a Vehicle for Public Education and Awareness
Hyena Nam
Adjunct Professor
Visual Communication Department
Kent State University

Stories from the Mchafukoge: Kanga as a Form of Visual Communication
Ziddi Msangi
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Vermont College of Fine Arts

Addressing Opportunity: The Landscape of Inequality
Mia Cinelli
Assistant Professor
The University of Kentucky

Shoshana Shapiro
PhD Candidate
University of Michigan

Understanding Racial And Gender Bias In Ai And How To Avoid It In Your Designs And Design Education
Sarah Pagliaccio
Adjunct Professor
Lesley University
College of Art and Design
Brandeis University

Designing Products of the Future Through Speculative Design
Mehrdad Sedaghat-Baghbani
Assistant Professor
Florida Atlantic University

Teaching Communications Design History Beyond the Canon

How do we avoid a “value this, discard that” attitude?

Carey Gibbons
Visiting Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute

The publication of Martha Scotford’s “Is There a Canon of Graphic Design History?” (1991), and the broader questioning of the idea of the canon across design history, art history, and other disciplines in recent years, has resulted in a closer examination of the study of communications design history. The need to move beyond the canon of communications design, which tends to emphasize the accomplishments of white male designers and dismisses the potential importance of anonymous works, feels particularly urgent following the Black Lives Matter protests and in light of the increasing attention being given to racial injustice. This presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with designing a communications design history course. How do we avoid a “value this, discard that” attitude while still acknowledging figures whose philosophies or works had a seminal or pivotal impact upon the evolution of the field? How do we cover both mainstream and marginal forms of communications design? Additionally, are we going beyond artistic or formal qualities, and examining communications design as a history of ideas, as advocated by Tibor Kalman, J. Abbott Miller, and Karrie Jacobs in their influential 1991 Print magazine article, “Good History/Bad History”? After examining these questions, I will discuss my recent experience teaching communications design history at the Pratt Institute, where I have increasingly attempted to show that individuals from a variety of races, ethnicities, gender expressions, geographic backgrounds, cultures, and socioeconomic groups have contributed to the field of communications design. I will focus on my students’ experience participating in a class Instagram account (@beyondthecommdesigncanon), which aims to unearth and examine the people and stories of communications design that have been traditionally overlooked and not part of the commonly-taught “canon” of design history.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

Adaptation in Design Research: Combatting Social Isolation in Older Adults

Our need to socially connect is the strongest evidence of our shared humanity.

Christine Lhowe
Assistant Professor
Seton Hall University

At the core of human-centered design are people. Grounded in empathy and driven by human needs, HCD has the power to improve quality of life for individuals and society. As our communities, environments, and global structures change, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic, design must adapt to serve people within new contexts.

Our need to socially connect is the strongest evidence of our shared humanity. We are so highly interdependent on each other that isolation not only affects mental well-being but contributes to physical decline. In older adults, a population largely affected by loneliness, social isolation is associated with a 50% increased rate for dementia and other serious medical conditions.1

As a design practitioner and educator, my research focuses on cultivating meaningful connections through experiential design. With Me, an intergenerational toolkit was created to integrate older adults deeper into the fabric of society. As an analog kit, the fundamental purpose is to encourage people to spend time with one another.

In February 2020, With Me was in the last stages of production before implementation at a non-profit serving older adults across New York City. Social distancing requirements in mid-March put it indefinitely on hold. Caregivers were no longer able to do home visits. Family members were strongly recommended against visiting their loved ones. Loneliness in one of the most vulnerable populations to COVID-19 was magnified. When connection was needed most, With Me had to transition to a virtual solution.

This presentation is a case study on adaptation in an ongoing research project. It asks if we can replicate the benefits of physical time together while in a virtual world. It experiments with technology in a population that is often hesitant with using it. It explores how experiences may be designed for meaningful interactions across varying communication channels.

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions. https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older-adults.html

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

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.