INNOVATION Winter 2022: Changing Direction: New Pedagogies of Design Education

CHANGING DIRECTION

New Pedagogies of Design Education

IDEA 2023 is open for entry

January 3 – March 6, 2023

2022

Student Design Gold Winner: VO & AIRRO Designed by Minwook Paeng, S/IDSA, Felix Yves Bartsch, Jehyun Kim, and Ryan McClure of Imperial College London / Royal College of Art

INNOVATION ARCHIVES

Over 50 years of in-depth industrial design articles, academic papers, and case studies is now available online. IDSA, in partnership with the Hagley Museum and Library, is pleased to share archives of the Society’s quarterly journal INNOVATION magazine, dating back to 1968. Sometimes critical and sometimes comical, but always thoughtful and articulate, the articles in INNOVATION over the years are a testament to our desire to share knowledge with one another and celebrate our best accomplishments in design. INNOVATION presents a rich historical account, told by those who lived it, of an organization and profession simultaneously defining and re-defining its own boundaries.

CHANGING DIRECTION: NEW PEDAGOGIES OF DESIGN EDUCATION

48 Studio Adjacent: Why Studio Education Is Still Part of the Future by Mitzi Vernon, IDSA

52 iPads in Prague: An Architectural Review and Industry Collaboration by Michael Rall, IDSA

56 Making a Case for a DesignFocused Foundation Year by Kimberlee Wilkens, IDSA, and Michael Seskauskas

60 Creating Business-Ready Designers by Grant Delgatty, IDSA

62 Let Play Arise: Bringing Joy, Cheer, and Spontaneity to the Classroom by Nipuni Siyambalapitiya, I/IDSA 66 Toward Equitable Education: Building an Accessible Design Studio by Xue Dong, I/IDSA

70 Lights, Camera, Action: Inspiring Students to Be Big Thinkers by James Howard

18 2022 Scholarship Recipients 20 2022 IDSA Education Symposium Recap 22 Navigating With and Without Direction by Meghan Day, S/IDSA 26 Unfolding New Ways of Interacting by Yoojin Hong 28 Critical Writing Supporting Critical Making: The Design Essay Assignment by Fernando Carvalho, IDSA, PhD, MFA, Tom Hurford, I/IDSA, MSt, and Ian Campbell Cole, MA 34 Creative Burnout: Suffocating the Future of Design by Kayla Roles and Byungsoo Kim, IDSA, PhD 40 The Nuance of Need: Mapping User Needs Throughout the Design Process by James Rudolph, IDSA 120 Finding Logic: Industrial Facility’s Approach to Design Language by Brian Paschke

David Edquilang, IDSA 82 West District SMA Winner Kelsey Leppek, IDSA 84 Midwest District GSMA Winner Hanyu Zhu, IDSA 86 Northeast District GSMA Winner

Ann Dinh, IDSA 88 South District GSMA Winner

113 GMSA Finalists 118 2022 Academic Jury

IN EVERY ISSUE 4 In This Issue 6 IDSA HQ by

Sangyu Xi,

Cover: Image collage featuring a student from Kimberlee Wilkens' and Michael Seskauskas' class at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Design, page 56.

Opposite: HeePo, a reimagining of the traditional electric kettle by Yannan Pan, S/IDSA, a 2022 GSMA finalist, page 113.

EVOLVING EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE

Sharing knowledge with others has been an intrinsic part of human nature from pretty much the beginning. The invention of written language allowed scribes to make records containing information that could be imparted from one generation to the next. Formalized places of learning, along with the proliferation of reading competency and the establishment of structured education systems, are historically visible in nearly every societal construct all over the globe. That said, we acknowledge that longstanding inequities in access to education exist to this day. Nevertheless, our collective mental capacity to learn, solve problems, and expand our cognitive ability has led to the great innovations of the past.

Today, there are around 20 million college students in the United States. Of that, only a small fraction is studying industrial design. As of this writing, IDSA’s current (admittedly unscientific) estimate has that number to be anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 (based on anecdotal sources and extrapolations of existing student membership data). Regardless of size, it is this small group of creative and increasingly diverse minds who will eventually become professional designers and will be responsible for creating some of the great innovations of our future.

What is being taught? How is it being taught? Who is teaching it? The answers to these questions might be as varied and nuanced as the interpretations and debates about design thinking. Yet, as it relates to the teaching of industrial design, one of IDSA’s central purposes is to help facilitate the conversation around those questions and thusly understand the answers. Our articles of incorporation, established at the time of our founding in 1965, state that, among other pursuits, IDSA is to:

A recurring concern, voiced by both design educators and students currently enrolled in college-level studies is that a gap exists between what is being taught in school and the skills that are expected in professional settings upon graduation. Setting the subject matter of study aside, the challenges of remote learning in recent years because of COVID-19 have only put further strain on the quality of coursework being taught by educators and the value of the learning students receive. Further complications reveal themselves when considering that the speed of change in the tools and methods used by professional industrial designers sometimes outpaces the curriculum’s ability to adapt, which is compounded by the continued overlapping and blurring of the once broad borders between different design disciplines. It might sometimes seem as if young designers must know everything about everything upon graduation if they hope to have a fighting chance to land a job. If that is the case, how can we support academic institutions and our dedicated community of design educators in their work to teach the foundations of our profession to future generations?

“cooperate with educational institutions where the principles of industrial design are taught with the aim of improving the methods of instruction of their application to the practical work of the practitioner of industrial design.”

In pursuit of fulfilling one of IDSA’s core missions set forth by our founding members, we’ve collected a group of articles in this issue written by educators who are pioneering new models of industrial design higher education. More specifically, we sought out academic professionals who are endeavoring to create new learning opportunities to engage with students across three spectrums: (1) expanding how industrial design is taught, (2) introducing new pedagogies or learning experiences, and (3) best preparing students for their life as a practicing designer. We hope this issue provides a valuable resource for our academic community in establishing new levels of excellence in design classrooms around the world.

Congratulations also to this year’s Undergraduate Student Merit winners and finalists, Graduate Student Merit Award winners and finalists, and Design Foundation Scholarship recipients whom we celebrate in these pages. We wish you a bright future.

—INNOVATION Editorial Team

CORRECTION

The design credits for the Wireless EV Charging System IDEA 2022 Featured Finalist on page 192 in the Fall 2022 issue were incorrect. We apologize for the error. The project was designed by Genesis Design Center for Hyundai Motor Company/Citrus Design.

FAREWELL, FOR NOW

On November 7, 2022, Jason Belaire, IDSA, Chair of IDSA’s Board of Directors, shared an update with our community that I would be stepping down from the role of Executive Director at the end of 2022. This was a difficult and personal decision I made in order to make space in my future for a return to my passion for industrial design outside of the community-focused work of IDSA. Make no mistake, serving as IDSA’s Executive Director has been a personal and professional highlight, and I am immensely proud of the work I’ve done here. My accomplishments were only made possible with the trusted guidance of the Board of Directors and the tireless efforts of IDSA staff, who supported my decisions, enacted my strategies, and helped make real my vision for what IDSA could become.

Over the past five years, I’ve learned a lot about what a community means and the strength it can have when its members are empowered to achieve their best. I’ve often felt that our work at the IDSA headquarters is about creating the right environment and platform for community to exist. It can be a delicate balance to strike in producing the high-quality professional development experiences our membership expects within the realities of the need for financial stability (during a pandemic no less) and a limited number of hours

in the day to accomplish it all. That said, I’d like to think that the team at HQ, along with an aligned Board of Directors, is better equipped now than perhaps ever before to continue their mission to build the IDSA community of the future.

To that end, we’ve been resetting the groundwork internally for the year(s) ahead. Given that a change in leadership naturally carries with it an inherent uncertainty, our efforts will be centered on maintaining our current momentum and delivering continued benefit for our members. In addition, we are being mindful, when planning, of external factors, which are largely out of our control, such as an economic recession and inflation, ongoing COVID-19 health concerns, and ever-increasing competition from other design-focused organizations and content platforms.

The Board of Directors and headquarters staff have adopted a common mindset around shared themes to ensure that our discussions and decisions stay focused on goals that contribute to the organization’s future success. Our strategic themes for 2023 are:

Stabilize: We must focus on stabilizing our team as quickly as possible to ensure that all core functions and programming outputs remain unaffected. A change in team composition, while challenging in the short term,

does present opportunities for introducing new talent and capability in the long term. There is always an opportunity for growth within change.

Prioritize: We can’t do everything at the same time. We can’t be everything to everyone. Sometimes even the best ideas, initiatives, and intentions must wait until we are adequately prepared to execute them. The recent volatility of our economy, public health, workplace norms, and societal structures should warrant a somewhat cautious approach. Our ability to align with the most essential tasks and priorities will be of paramount importance in the year ahead.

Deliver: Our membership expects a high level of quality and professionalism in everything we do. Delivering against these ever-increasing expectations takes time, sustained focus, and investment. Our membership isn’t always asking for more, but instead for better. Special care must be directed toward ensuring that our core programming remains intact and is produced to the standard our membership has come to expect.

Prepare: Every decision we make in the next six to 12 months will impact the next five years of IDSA’s future. Our efforts must ultimately create a suitable environment for a new leader to thrive. Preparing for our future means

maintaining our current direction with intentionality and purpose while being agile in our ability to make requisite adjustments when mandated.

I am confident about the future of IDSA. I humbly encourage you to give your full support to my future successor and the IDSA headquarters team in their work. Translating the input from the Board of Directors and regular membership feedback into action is no small task, but know that finding ways to maximize the value you as a member receive is at the core of what these talented individuals do daily.

It has been a great pleasure to meet and work with so many of you during my time as Executive Director. Seeing others achieve professional and personal success through their connection to IDSA is what has made this job deeply meaningful, and I am honored to have played a small part in the legacy of this organization. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead. Thank you.

—Chris Livaudais, IDSA, Executive Director chrisl@idsa.org

THE DIRT IS IN THE DETAILS

Is modern design always clean, rounded, smooth, white, and easy to wipe clean? What about the soles of your sneakers? Have you ever been curious about the effectiveness (and necessity) of the treads on your footwear? Is their purpose to provide traction and stability or just to clog and track debris into your residence after they and you have had a good day pounding the pavement, trail, field, or yard? Once those surface-gripping treads are filled, what happens to their purpose?

Nike scientists spend hours creating treads and testing them on the track with slow-motion video. They explore new polymers and field conditions, shaving seconds off performance, but do they think about how to scrub the dirt out of those tread details? How do you clean these tread gaps, which can be anywhere from 1 inch to just 1/32 inches wide?

The most effective tool we’ve found so far is one that is used, ironically enough, by a farrier or a horse owner to clean debris from an animal’s hooves. This multitool has a small stiff brush on one end and a screwdriver-like

protrusion opposite that will dig out most of the outdoor grime that has accumulated in those functional and welldesigned treads in your shoes.

Is there a self-cleaning solution? Perhaps people who design self-cleaning tire treads should be consulted to design self-cleaning grooves for footwear.

There is one design function we practitioners of product design should keep in mind. We must always imagine what the use of the product will be under the most practical and the most bizarre end-use conditions. By keeping this foremost in our design mind, we could bring more useful products to market.

Look at the distressed fashion trend for ripped, worn jeans—pants with character. Maybe dirt and mud are the new black? What is really in Mies van de Rohe’s details? God or dirt?

—Marshall Johnson, L/IDSA, and Tucker Viemeister, FIDSA mjoh105055@aol.com; www.tuckerviemeister.com

Firstly, I love the premise of this article. From someone who spent years of his life pounding a basketball on Georgia red clay dirt and years in the footwear design industry, I can attest that the dirt is truly in the details.

Back in the year 2000, I was fortunate enough to own a pair of Varsity Red Nike Shox BB4s, the first year Nike introduced its Shox technology. If you do an image search for the outsole design, you will notice that the forefoot tread contained a wide herringbone pattern and the rear tread pattern was designed as long and wide horizontal bars.

Because the tread patterns were built wider than most in the performance basketball sector at the time, I could use the hooked end of a nail-clipper file to clean the packed dirt, mud, and small rocks from the tread. This allowed me to keep that nice traction when I hit the courts (like a farrier’s process) after thoroughly washing and scrubbing it clean as well.

All of this to say that the challenge for all designers and engineers is to innovate a design that encompasses everybody, everywhere, at any time. From my perspective, this challenge remains unsolved because of this drastic range of variations.

In the case of designing a performance basketball shoe that performs in both hardwood floors and rough outdoor conditions, the design feature to think about may be centered around extreme draft angles in the traction pattern design among wider siping. This would allow the compacted dirt and mud to slide out of the pattern more easily compared to if the walls of the design were purely vertical.

The width of the traction pattern will matter as well because when transitioning that clean, uncompacted outsole to the hardwood, you would still want to have as much surface area of that rubber in contact with the floor for optimal grip, also known as the coefficient of friction.

As you can imagine, to design for everyone, everywhere is quite the feat. Pain points like these fuel other innovations that can solve the nuances of consumers and how they use various products. Sounds like a great problem to have.

—Quintin “Q” Williams www.creativeastronautventures.com

CONSTRAINTS, BOUNDARIES, AND BARRIERS

In his last Daily Show in 2015, Jon Stewart warned of the obstacles to climate action, calling it the “bullshit of infinite possibilities.” He criticized those unwilling to act for their unrealistic reasoning: “We can’t do anything until we know everything. We cannot take action on climate change until everyone in the world agrees that gay marriage vaccines won’t cause our children to marry goats who will come for our guns.” His rant actually supports designers, who start to do things in order to learn what to do. Designers are always prototyping before we know everything. Designers are professional contradiction and complication juggers. We use constraints to define complex issues and mock-ups to reduce noise, which is especially urgent now to reduce greenhouse gases.

Always definition-busters, the profession planted in the “industrial” domain is growing beyond our domain. The sky’s the limit for entrepreneurs who see opportunities everywhere. As definitions morph and silos blur, boundaries are fading away or being pushed back: Ukraine borders, redline barriers, Congressional districts, gated neighborhoods, and the culture wars. Reality is extending into new frontiers from not enough to too much.

Designers are nonconformists who love to play with clay, bust the limits, and manipulate definitions. Is the designation “industrial design” even a useful concept when the discipline ranges from innovation to reuse and from pots and pans to foreign policy projects? Isn’t “undefinable” and “outside the box” our advantage? What does delineation mean anymore when workers work at home or are “quietly quitting” at the office? Is it an oxymoron to elect election deniers or enforce no boundaries on the “explore” phase? Boundaries are often stitched together and layered, setting confusing restrictions to personal space, bodies, emotional space, and freedom. Doesn’t this kind of environment encourage chameleon industrial designers to distinguish the profession and “products” with a proprietary process?

What is off-limits when you can go anywhere? The 1972 film Design Q & A asks Charles Eames “What are the boundaries of design?” He pushes back: “What are

the boundaries of problems? When asked about having to compromise, he says, “I don’t remember ever being forced to accept compromises, but I have willingly accepted constraints.” He emphasizes that “design depends largely on constraints.” The recent work of Harvard researchers bolsters this claim. Their analysis (“Why Constraints Are Good for Innovation,” published in the Harvard Business Review) of 145 empirical studies shows that “individuals, teams, and organizations alike benefit from a healthy dose of constraints. Or as Notorious B.I.G. rapped: “Mo Money Mo Problems.”

Are Definitions a Subset of Design Problems?

One of the key elements of the design process is finding the limits. Without rules, baseball wouldn’t be baseball! (Check out Dan Formosa and Paul Hamburger’s Baseball Field Guide: An In-Depth Illustrated Guide to the Complete Rules of Baseball. They say that it’s mostly about cheating the rules). Making profits is the only constant of business. The business theory of constraints aims to structure an organization around the key constant constraints. There’s the project management rule that says you can only have two: time, quality, or cost. John Kenneth Galbraith says that sets of rules, laws, regulations, and customs are the conventional wisdom that holds society together. Constraints are critical for civilization, math, and programing: formulas, equations, and algorithms tabulate solutions. Variables come from clients with constraints (they call them requirements). Of course, users have their constraints and own needs.

Bubbling issues of universal design and ecological crisis feel like whack-a-mole, but constraints don’t have to funnel down to the least common denominator. Eames says that design depends on “the sum of all constraints” and that the effectiveness of solving the design problem is reliant on “the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth.

Each problem has its own peculiar list.”

Input is a dynamic constraint. Free-range improvisational theater requires quick thinking with live prompts from the audience. (In our case, the market is always throwing out new needs). An improv exchange starts with something like, “The world is on fire!” which leads to: “Yes, it is! Did you bring the marshmallows?” The essential improvisational rule is to always accept what the other comic says and then expand on that line of thinking.

Improv is spontaneous, but with rules. It is the same rules as brainstorming: defer judgment, build on ideas, and be visual (Post-its and props). The only constraint is to avoid the negative—the “Yes, and” tool (accept the premise and expand). The improv process is supposed to lead to laughs or happiness—and good results for design too. Staying positive is especially hard today when dealing with all the wicked problems piling up! Like comedians who think everything is funny, designers think everything can be better.

This Is Not Funny

Constraints are how we make sense of chaos. Back in 1943, Dohner & Lippincott displayed a 3D graphic on its office wall anchored by the words “Conditioning factors of design: time, fine appearance and economics” with strings interconnected to ecology. The work of designers is anchored in reality by gravity and physics and customers. Truth is our superpower! Artificial intelligence (AI) has no limits. Reality is the fence that makes good neighbors of AI. The metaverse is bigger than everywhere! AI exists in a virtual world of data and can race off into its own data stream—beyond the metaverse—losing touch with us. Thinking faster than a speeding bullet, AI might take our jobs, but it doesn’t need nature. Can we impose guardrails for AI to bounce off of like NASCAR drivers?

Too many constraints and too often can make people mad; although, I can get more creative when someone tells me I can’t do something. So I exploit the constraints. It’s a love/hate relationship, it’s creative fuel, and it’s competitive. Making the project into a game is fun too—me against the world! And if there are not enough constraints, I can add my own! I love to sneak easter eggs into projects such as a social message, a face, my favorite color, and more serious additions. After we created GoodGrips, we incorporated the universal design approach into projects even when the client didn’t ask for it. Making solutions to problems businesses don’t care about—like when they ignored warning signs of climate change—is our business.

In 1995, Neal Stephenson wrote a nanopunk sci-fi story, Diamond Age, set in a future world in which “nanotechnology had made nearly anything possible, and so the cultural role in deciding what should be done with it had become far more important than imagining what could be done with it.” Due to a change in the weather 37 years later, it’s not whether we can imagine, it’s why haven’t we done it. The killer (literally) app is the overriding constraint of the expanding environmental crisis, which trumps and

exacerbates inflation, migration, hunger, war, almost any problem. We can’t let greenhouse gases cloud over beauty because beauty, like sugar, makes the medicine go down. Overlapping constraints focus on the sweet spot of good design—beautility—not medicine and oatmeal.

The essence of universal design is incorporating older peoples’ constraints in a project, but that’s essentially just thinking ahead. Climate change is reducing the time we have to think ahead! Stilts on a house can look cool before the flood. We can make green things that are even more desirable, devise carbon-gobbling manufacturing or embed electrical generating that people want and need. We streamlined production, services, and desires from pencil sharpeners to the iPhone. Now Beautility can seduce people into capturing methane and sequestering carbon. This is the time when mass-producing good things can avoid climate collapse.

The Most Critical Client: Mother Nature

She can’t be fooled or tricked anymore. Form and function used to be the design objective of good design. Now the main function is really practical: removing and capturing carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone gas. Because, as Giorgio Parisi, an Italian physicist of statistical mechanics and complex systems, says, “I don’t think the planet is in danger. But we are.” Or as Stalin said: “No people, no problems.”

Design and technology need to save us. Since 2014, Project Drawdown has been analyzing technologically viable solutions to combat and reverse the climate crisis. Initiated by Amanda Joy Ravenhill and Paul Hawken (of Smith & Hawken), the team of scholars, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and activists has prioritized a list of over 80 sectors that can have the most impact on reducing emissions globally. Interestingly, ranked in the top seven are refrigeration, wind turbines, reduced food waste, a plant-rich diet, tropical forests, educating girls, and family planning (drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions).

Project Drawdown is at the core of Barent Roth’s and my studio at Parsons. Students are designing products based on those top practices and technology explorations for reducing and reversing greenhouse gas concentrations. Limited resources inspires ingenuity. Our students’ product proposals are not just cool student projects; they are physical ambassadors of an optimistic future. Thanks to Ilene Shaw, these Drawdown messengers will be exhibited to buyers and manufacturers at the NY Now tradeshow in New York (www.parsonsxdrawdown.com).

I recently heard the convicted murderer Shaka Senghor talk about how he turned his life around. He said that he wrote his best-selling book, Writing My Wrongs, in 30 days while he was in solitary confinement. Scientists say we have about seven years until the climate crisis will throw away our key! Let’s focus!

—Tucker Viemeister, FIDSA www.tuckerviemeister.com

BROKEN NO MORE!

What do you get when you combine an MIT-style education with amazing middle and high school students? You get the New England Innovation Academy (NEIA), that’s what! I recently sat down with Matt Kressy, the creator and former founding director of the MIT Integrated Design & Management master’s degree program and head of innovation at NEIA in Marlborough, MA, to learn about education the NEIA way. And some of the students chimed in too.

Scott Henderson: Did the idea for NEIA come about due to frustration with traditional high school curriculums? Is NEIA in part a solution to a broken system? Is NEIA a backlash?

Matt Kressy: The answer is yes. My experience in school was terrible. Two things happened to me. First off, the curriculum was not designed for the way I think. I am an experiential learner, and I am proud of it. The way I learn is very powerful. I am fortunate to have learned at a young age the kind of learner I am despite how much the world was telling me I was wrong (and predicting my failure). Luckily for me, I had parents who understood this, which gave me the confidence to learn the way that works for me, and my life turned out just fine. No. 2: I was bullied, which gave me sensitivity and empathy for people who are judged and stereotyped. I also realized that it is very difficult to learn to take risks, experiment, and iterate in an environment where everyone is always looking for an opportunity to knock you down.

These two points informed how I designed the curriculum and culture of NEIA. And luckily, it ends up that many people in education have had similar experiences, or think the way I think, and got behind this to contribute and made it greater than I thought it could be.

Henderson: What is wrong with traditional middle and high school curriculums in the U.S.? How does NEIA solve those problems?

Kressy: The curriculum that is currently being taught was designed for an age when information was not readily available at our fingertips. The traditional curriculum is devoted to rote memorization, successful test-taking, and linear thinking; it is theoretical and intangible content. Now that we are out of the industrial age and into the digital age, a vast amount of information is available to us; it is almost infinite. In addition, we have amazing new tools from CAD modeling to digital fabrication, and we have global connectivity giving us access to supply chains and markets. Memorization is just not that important anymore.

What is important is how we sort through that information, what strategies we use to design and understand our world, how to be our own best teachers, and how we can learn to experiment, fail, and succeed in a natural, joyful way. Those things come from experiential learning.

A certain element of theoretical learning is necessary to make this real in this world. At NEIA, we teach our students to teach themselves. We created an integrated curriculum where academic subjects teach beyond theory and concepts and get them to practice immediately and produce tangible results in labs, maker spaces, projects, designs, and, sometimes, in the real world.

Henderson: Design can solve or contribute to solving the biggest problems that face the world. Is that what NEIA is doing? Using design to fix education, which many people think needs reform and overhaul?

Kressy: As a designer, obviously the design of NEIA was the result of a design process. I start with human-centered design, which gives me a foundation for what is needed and what is desired and gives me empathy for the stakeholders involved. From that foundation, I imagine and visualize the most beautiful and fantastical experience I can for those stakeholders. Somewhere between that fantasy and the needs and constraints of the existing structures and processes is, I think, where good design lands. The tension

between fantasy and reality is something good designers have learned to manage because a lot of people are uncomfortable in that space. But the question always is, how far can you push fantasy without making the product infeasible?

Striking the right balance for the design of NEIA was, and is, challenging. But to the credit of our team and the culture here, we have risen to the occasion. I am really proud of our organization. What’s very interesting about NEIA is that the very process used to design it is the process that underpins the primary value proposition of our Innovation Studio. We want to enable all our students to grow up and create experiences that are needed and meaningful to others. We want to prepare them to go out into the world and do what we have done to devise solutions that create value, which, of course, extends beyond the problem space of education.

Henderson: NEIA is a private school. I would imagine it has to be given the number of times I was asked to donate crayons to my child’s elementary school classroom supply closet. Art and design are not only devalued in the public school system; it’s as if nobody even knows what they are. Do you think a program like NEIA could find its way into public education?

Kressy: That is the whole point of this school. This is an opportunity to demonstrate to the world the power of art and design, experiential learning, trial and error, and deep integration with academic subjects. Now that this prototype is up and running, the next step is to demonstrate the power of our pedagogy to inspire other schools to adopt our practices and help them make it a reality. I really hope that I can help other schools do that.

My ultimate intent in this project is to make it so that every citizen of this country understands and can practice human-centered design so they have a structured process to create empathy, understanding, and compassion for others. As they go through life and create experiences for others, they can do that thoughtfully and with the criticalthinking skills and eye for beauty that designers have.

Henderson: The pandemic caused unprecedented drops in college enrollment numbers. For the first time, the idea started to emerge that maybe ’college isn’t as necessary'. Is NEIA born from that thinking?

Kressy: No, but we would not be surprised if some of our students choose to skip college because they have been

empowered with the mindset, confidence, vision, skills, capabilities, and methods they need to jump right into wherever their dreams are taking them.

Henderson: The Bauhaus School in the late 1930s has served as a benchmark for art and design curriculums around the world with Bauhausian ideas like a “Foundation Year” becoming standard. Is NEIA breaking into new territory with a unique approach to a design school curriculum that could rival even our perceptions of the Bauhaus, which many design educators still revere?

Kressy: Well, I think so. But I think a few things need to be clarified. The role of designers has changed. Designers are no longer considered stylists. They are expected to understand business models, technologies, basic engineering principles, and CAD modeling. If we can empower designers with those sensibilities, they will have a bigger impact on the products, services, and experiences that are created by business and society.

One of the biggest problems right now is that designers do not have a loud enough voice in the creation of systems across society. I believe a big part of that problem is that they don’t speak the language of business and engineering. Because of that, the value they bring, which is tremendous, is not recognized by the teams with whom they are collaborating.

We have to train designers and artists to communicate their value to people who do not speak their language by teaching them these other languages. Our new movement would be what I call the “integrated designer.”

An integrated designer is someone who understands the language of design, business, and engineering and has the design skills and, most importantly, the desire to achieve beautiful results and create inspiring experiences.

Henderson: To me, having an understanding of art history, design, and architectural history; a solid foundation in the visual arts; and formalized training in fundamentals like drawing are critical to becoming a great designer. These days, I notice a trend that steps away from these cornerstones, focusing more on the five steps of design thinking and research. Where does NEIA fall in this spectrum?

Kressy: Strongly in the former category. I am not a fan of the idea of design thinking. Design is about action, not thinking. Design is about trial and error: building, testing, inspiring, and creating real things that people can respond to and be inspired by. There is some thinking involved, but it is mostly doing. We were very careful to ensure that we have an amazing arts program at NEIA to complement our Innovation Studio curriculum. NEIA is about breaking a cycle by empowering the people who think differently and have different expectations of themselves and others.

Henderson: To me, the key to everything is understanding value. Is what I am doing of value? Why is it of value? Value comes in many forms. Discovering it takes total immersion. That’s why NEIA seems so interesting. Are you teaching students how to spot, understand, and generate value?

Kressy: Yes, absolutely. We teach, especially in the Innovation Studio, a framework that helps students decompose value into understandable, actionable chunks that inform a process of identifying opportunities. In that process is human-centered design where you ask people what is valuable to them. So you have an ongoing discussion about value, how you can create value, what others perceive as value, and, of course, how you are perceived to be valuable.

One of the tenets of the Innovation Studio, and much of my teaching about leadership, is that it doesn’t matter what your title is. What matters is the value you create, what your contribution was today. I think that is a mindset that stems from the performing arts and competitive athletics. You are only as good as your last performance. That can be unsettling to some because you can’t rest on your title, but once you get past it, you can achieve results you never

thought possible and your value is never in question. The benefits of those results are what makes the world go round.

Henderson: And now some questions for the students. Do any of you see yourself as an entrepreneur?

Eve, 9th grade: I do, because I am constantly iterating and innovating the things that I do to try to improve them.

Niara, 7th grade: Yes, because I like the idea of creating and building something that not many people have thought of, or at least putting my own spin on things. Since I was young, I’ve found new ways to do something and aspired to create more.

Kevin, 10th grade: No, because they create something that is nonexistent and succeeded and make money, and I am not doing that yet. Just having an idea and creativity doesn’t make you an entrepreneur; it is action and results that make you one.

Max, 10th grade: I think so because to be one you have to have an idea. Still, it doesn’t have to work, but it has to be a solution to a problem, and I did that last year at the NEIA Sales Gala with a unique product; there was nothing like it. You make something. It might suck, but you persist.

Henderson: What innovations have you seen out there in the world in the last five years that have inspired you, that have made you say to yourself, “Wow, I wish I had thought of that!”?

Owen 10th grade: My mom created her own business as a special education advocate and is rethinking and reshaping how she advocates for her students with learning disabilities. As someone with learning disabilities, it inspired me to follow in those steps of helping the community.

Anna, 10th grade: There is a water bottle that flavors your water through scent, so the flavor isn’t actually there, but as you drink the water, your sense of smell makes your brain think you are tasting it. Also, a tool for your thumb that keeps books open.

Eve: Bookmarks with lights attached to them. It solved the real issue of reading in bed, as many people do, with a basic solution to a situation. Someone thought a lot about this small change, which is really cool.

Hans-Peter, 11th grade: For my own product, we made a desirable, feasible, and healthy dish and hand soap and put it on the market. It gives me a sense of hope for the future.

Henderson: Do you feel a rush of exhilaration when you have a creative breakthrough? Does that bring you back for more?

Catherine, 11th grade: Every time I have a rush of creativity or figure something out creatively, it makes me want to do more.

Anna: Yes, because if I solve one problem, I know I can solve more.

Niara: It definitely does because it makes me feel like I contributed and confirms my confidence in my abilities. That feeling of accomplishment when you step back and share it with others brings joy to myself and others and makes me want to do it again.

Hans-Peter: I can feel the adrenaline, cortisol, and dopamine flowing through my neurons and feel a sense of power, and the fact I can help someone, and it is actually working, is what brings you back. The origin of that feeling is my love of helping people.

THINGS THAT MATTER

After 35 years of design consulting and 10 years in academia, I frequently reflect on my career and try to establish (remember) the hallmark moments that helped shape my maturation as a designer. What were the influences and who were the people that had a profound impact on my success? I guess it’s one thing to be introspective as I grow older, but I am also reminded daily of my students and their curiosity and drive to figure out what their competitive edge could be.

A Nascent Opportunity

One early milestone in my career was meeting and working with the up-and-coming tech phenom Michael Dell and his company PCs Limited in Austin, TX. Working with Michael presented a myriad of opportunities for design experimentation. Not only did he not have any experience with design or product development, but personal computers were beginning to define a new blossoming industry with few precedents when it came to aesthetics. Most of the product definition was guided by engineering, human factors, materials, and manufacturing. This presented an amazing opportunity for a young industrial designer to experiment and really push the aesthetic envelope.

I would commute weekly between Houston and Austin to work with the company’s engineers and present product concepts to Michael. We were intricately involved with internal component configurations, trying to maximize volumetrics and enhance ergonomics. It was exciting to be involved with the entire development process, not just skinning the products.

Perhaps the most rewarding and formative experience was designing Dell’s first laptop, the 316LT, which was

released in 1989. Michael had just launched his new Dell Computer Corporation, establishing a blank slate regarding product branding, and we were eager to create a new design language for his new portable PC division. This young computer industry was on a similar path to the early history of the automobile. Initially, people wanted a car because it was a car, but as more companies entered the market with similar features and aesthetics, the most successful companies invested in design for creative and distinctive differentiation.

I quickly became addicted to the pace of technological advancement and the impact it had on product development. It seemed like the various components were shrinking monthly, but our design team was able to navigate these obstacles without disturbing development cycles.

My goal was to design every single component of the 316. At one point, Michael stopped by my desk and silently stared at my sketches. Clearly, I was working on something other than the laptop. Eventually, I broke the awkward silence and said, “This is your new AC adapter for the 316.” He explained that they planned to use the off-the-shelf black brick adapter supplied by the contract manufacturer that every other computer company used. I timidly pushed back and said that Dell products need to be different, emphasizing that design was now part of the company’s DNA. After a moment, Michael simply smiled and walked away. From that point on, design became a core tenet of Dell’s product development, and what was once a service outsourced to design consultants was augmented by the building of its own industrial design organization.

The industry was booming with the likes of IBM, Apple, Compaq/HP, Texas Instruments, and a plethora of Asian

Note from the column curator, Stephen R. Umbach, FISDA: This issue we present the story of two Texas-based design legends during the early days of the personal computer and how design obstacles were addressed and how to develop a healthy design culture.

manufacturers, No longer a fast follower, Dell was becoming an industry leader. The 316 put the company at the nexus. Dell was in the left lane and passing the competition.

Growing Talent

During this extremely exciting time of gaining recognition and working with industry pioneers, other influences started to take hold of my philosophical self-awareness. Observing the dynamic environment of human interactions in a growing corporation like Dell made an impression and greatly impacted my future ability to lead teams and eventually different companies that I would help create.

It was amazing to watch Michael grow his business. That growth, however, was not without many mistakes and poor decisions. It was fascinating to observe Michael react when confronted with obstacles. It was clear that failure was not an option; instead, he would be consumed with finding a solution, rather than being frustrated.

This approach also translated into how he treated his employees. If someone on our team made a mistake, rather than react with exasperation, Michael would want to understand how the mistake was made. Sometimes understanding the thought process that leads to poor judgments reveals a resolution or opportunity for moving forward. It is more about understanding relationships and exhibiting respect. You will not always complete a project, and some may be canceled midstream, but at the end of the day, you are left with the individuals you work with.

Several years later as I assumed the reigns of Design Edge, a consultancy in Austin, I tried to emulate Michael’s general philosophy when it came to hiring and nurturing employees. Clearly, when recruiting, talent is key, but perhaps even more important are loyalty and integrity. As I see now with my students today, talent can be incubated and grow provided you are dealing with individuals who strive for excellence and are willing to put in the time. The critical element for any organization, be it a university design studio or a company, is to develop a culture of respect. Culture begins at the top with a philosophy and tenets that all team members or employees can clearly understand and adopt.

—Mark S. Kimbrough, IDSA mkimbrou@central.uh.edu

Mark Kimbrough is an associate professor and co-director of industrial design at the Hines College of Architecture & Design at the University of Houston.

One of many early concept sketches for Dell’s 316LT AC adapter.

Zeyu Tian | University of Illinois Champain-Urbana 2022 Undergraduate Scholarship

Growing up, Zeyu Tian felt that she had seen and used many products that did not make sense. Over time, she began to interpret the designers’ design ideas and think about how to design for a better user experience. Driven by her passion for creating human-centered design, she now aspires to become an industrial designer. She wants to produce products that are practical, have aesthetic value, and will not easily become obsolete. Tian is currently a senior industrial design student at the University of Illinois Champaign–Urbana.

When asked about leaving a positive impact on society through design, Tian says, “A design that positively impacts society should have a meaning of its own. People may be initially attracted by its function or fascinated by its beauty. They may not understand the design at first glance. However, when they continue to use it, they will gradually understand the meaning behind the design.” However, she says, “This design must be human-centered, so people can understand its importance and resonate with it. I want to design something that is not just an entity but also a story and a language.”

One of her projects that embraces this ethos is Globe, a game-based platform that allows students from countries around the world to exchange their views on different cultural behaviors. These interactions will allow people to establish communication and understanding for one another while creating space for new friendships to form.

She also designed Hypnos, a nonwearable device that helps people get a good night’s sleep and encourages them to develop good sleep habits. It incorporates an overnight dock for a mobile phone with a humidifier. With the accompanying app, users set the time they want to fall asleep and wake up. After waking up, they receive a sleep report and advice on how to improve their rest.

Tian is passionate about improving representation within the design industry itself and in the evolving design disciplines. She says, “I hope that through my efforts I can inspire more women to take an interest in design and achieve gender equality in the field of design.” She continues, “The realization of design diversity requires personal knowledge in multiple fields and the cooperation of a team of people. In addition, I hope to develop the ability to think and be curious, eliminate prejudices, improve and refine my designs, and contribute to the inclusiveness and diversity of the industrial design field.”

Hypnos guides users to develop healthy sleep patterns using an app and a nonwearable device, designed by Zeyu Tian.

Jaehyeok (Jacob) Lee | Pratt Institute 2022 Graduate Gianninoto Scholarship

Jaehyeok (Jacob) Lee grew up in Korea, where a family illness led to his pursuit of design and his deep interest in helping people. “When my brother got sick,” he says, “I felt frustrated and helpless in an ominous environment during his two-year stay in hospital. It inspired me to think deeply about the role of a designer.” He cites this experience as when he first became interested in “‘design power,’ leading me to think more about a better quality of life for everyone.”

Lee majored in metal craft at the Seoul National University of Science and Technology. During his studies, he became passionate about universal and inclusive design by combining design thinking with craftsmanship. After graduating, he served as a product design consultant for startups in Korea and as an instructor teaching university students. He came to New York, where he is currently studying in the Pratt Institute MID program, to become a product design expert who can use the power of things in a positive way.

Lee tries to include the principles of universal design in his work wherever possible. He shares that the OXO’s Good Grip product line is a clear example of his design philosophy:

“I was greatly impressed by the fact that this company’s philosophy started with love, not just function. They are perfectly using design thinking within their products and companies, and every project starts with a love for humans and a deep empathy.”

Among the projects that helped him earn the 2022 Gianninoto Graduate Scholarship is Whoever, Cook. This measuring cup was conceived to give people who are visually impaired independence in the kitchen. It uses the principle that the water varies depending on the angle you hold the cup. The amount of water can be adjusted by changing the angle of the grip along the Braille surface.

The Sensory Rehabilitation Aids project aims to help rehabilitate people with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. This collection of products teaches users to identify pain. Each object provides a different sensorial effect and audio feedback.

Based on the World Health Organization’s definition of disability as “an incongruity of human interaction,” Lee feels that the responsibility of a designer is to create environmental conditions that will harmonize with people. He says, “I’m trying to keep the focus of design on humans and culture, not objects. I want to transform the discriminatory culture created by products born into a material society into an inclusive culture.”

The Sensory Rehabilitation Aids helps people with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis to develop skills and habits to avoid injury, designed by Jaehyeok (Jacob) Lee.

PROTOTYPING NEW WAYS OF INTERACTING: THE 2022 IDSA EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM—NOT JUST FOR EDUCATORS

At the 2022 International Design Conference, the Education Symposium convened in person for the first time since 2019. The committee had grand ambitions for the symposium: to create a highly interactive experience to prototype a new modality, the World Café; to challenge what can happen on stage; and to solicit participant feedback throughout.

For the World Café–style discussions, we set up four tables in the foyer of the Recital Hall with easels, paper, Post-its, and pens. Each author was given 15 minutes to bring a small group of participants (five to eight) up to speed on their research, have a short conversation, gather visual feedback, and/or run a brief activity. After 15 minutes, the participants moved to the next table, where each author repeated the same process with a new group of participants. We did this rotation four times on the first day and three times on the second. This arrangement gave the authors three to four brief interactive sessions in which they solicited feedback and had lively discussions, as opposed to presenting their paper once in a rapid-fire style set up on stage with a brief Q&A afterward.

We created experiences around three foci:

• Re-play: Providing programming inspired by stories and play, recovering and uncovering knowledge, and embracing and addressing shortcomings and historical blind spots.

• Re-fuel: Providing invigorating and inspiring hands-on activities, including place-base activities.

• Re-frame: Putting the spotlight on the future and where we should head as a community of practice.

Reflections from the Emcees

To capture the insights and learnings about the symposium, we interviewed the emcees to improve the experience for both attendees and organizers and make the symposium more relevant to the concerns of the day. Here are some of their initial thoughts:

What did we learn?

Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness: Traditionally, World Café conversations are 30–45 minutes per round, and we cut that down significantly. On Day 1 we provided only 12 minutes per round, which was frustratingly short, so we added a few minutes for Day 2. Side note, we wish we could have extended the sessions even further, but we were time-constrained.

The authors were thrown into this setup, and the ones who hadn’t experienced it before were understandably a bit skeptical. Yet everyone jumped in with both feet and embraced it. The format itself was able to convince even the biggest skeptics that this was worth their time and effort.

Participants were ushered from one table to the next

(with me whistling very loudly to indicate it was time to move on while waving my arms); the instructions and logistics clearly need some refinement.

Next year, we will bring this format back and will improve upon what we learned this year. This means that we will provide more time, have only three rotations, give authors clear guidelines, and provide a handout explaining the procedure and giving brief descriptions of the topics. I might opt for a gong or bell to keep everyone’s eardrums safe.

Louise Manfredi: For me, the biggest accomplishment was reestablishing the in-person gathering that was lost during the pandemic years. I am really glad I was part of the planning team and had the opportunity to emcee because I was finally able to meet so many wonderful people with whom I had connected with online during the pandemic years. There is a small but mighty community of scholars and educators with excellent theories, case studies, and approaches that I will certainly take with me to my classroom.

James Rudolph: As Verena and Louise have already mentioned, the World Café format brought much-needed enthusiasm and interaction to the IDC Education Symposium this year. I’m excited about the approach as it revitalizes the rather stodgy academic presentation format of the past while adding depth, rigor, and real-time feedback to some of the fascinating work design educators are conducting today.

I couldn’t help but notice the focus of all participants and the range of emotional engagement taking place— everything from serious questioning to boisterous laughter— as I walked around the tables during this exercise. Participants were clearly interested in the topics and, perhaps more importantly, truly interested in helping advance the thinking, the dialog, and the purpose of the research. I’m excited to leverage what we’ve learned through the World Café presentations this past year toward the entirety of the Education Symposium next year in New York.

Owen Foster: Not There Yet, an international effort, was also brought to life at the symposium thanks to a partnership with the Young Designers Circle of the World Design Organization. One of the main points of this freeflowing conversation was how important it is to give young designers and creatives a place to share their ideas with the world and, in turn, change the communities and cultures where we live. The three onstage presenters, who represented a group of 20 designers from across the world, encouraged the younger generations in their respective countries to share their opinions and challenge the status quo because they are creating the future in which our generation will live. This was the first of seven places worldwide to host the global dialogue. It will bring new ideas, motivate people to work toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and help people work together across borders and in their own communities.

What do you want to see for 2023?

Manfredi: Education delegates want more time and space to

connect with each other beyond the traditional presentation/ lecture format. Interactivity yields more enthusiasm, engagement, and lasting conversations, and the World Café format showed real potential for next year. Coming to this conference must be more than just a checkmark on your performance review. The value-add of being in a space where you can develop ideas and partnerships is crucial to being relevant in a competitive conference marketplace.

Rudolph: Next year, I’m interested to see design research beyond the classroom. As Sir Christopher Frayling once suggested, it’s important that we, as an academic community, continue to advance the discipline through design, for design, and about design. This means research into design methodologies and skill sets to advance realworld design solutions. It also means research into the nature of design activity, design behavior, and design cognition—knowledge that contributes to designers’ creative capabilities and problem-solving approaches. I’m thrilled to be part of the team to reimagine how we solicit and engage in this dialogue and how the experiences we create might inform the future of design.

Paepcke-Hjeltness: We are planning to bring back the abstracts-first submission. We are building on the refinements of the paper categories of the past years and will open the submission process up with abstracts first, after which we will invite accepted abstracts for full papers. In addition, we are explicitly looking for in-progress work. The World Café style lends itself to soliciting qualitative feedback and finding collaborators, and we are inviting researchers and practitioners alike to partake in the discourse.

We are grateful to the IDSA community for the continued support of the Education Symposium and the International Design conference. We are looking forward to seeing everyone in New York City!

—Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, IDSA, Owen Foster, IDSA, Louise Manfredi, PhD IDSA, and James Rudolph, IDSA verena@iastate.edu, owen@fostrcollective.com, lrmanfre@syr.edu, jrudolp2@nd.edu

Important Dates for the 2023 Education Symposium

• Abstracts due: 01/25/2023

• Notification of accepted abstracts: 2/15/2023

• In-progress papers, full papers, and activities due: 04/12/2023

• Notification of accepted papers and activities: 05/23/2023

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

NAVIGATING WITH AND WITHOUT DIRECTION

Industrial design is an incredibly broad, diverse field. I’ve heard it described as a catchall category: everything that is not architecture, not interior design, not fashion design, not urban planning. Trying to get my head around what employment and a career might look like at times feels like pawing through a junk drawer. Some roles I recognize, but I’m not sure what they really are. Some I don’t recognize and will later have to figure out what they entail. Many are the essential roles the job market reaches for again and again.

Navigating to find one’s place in such a broad industry can be challenging for the new designer, a challenge I am currently undertaking as a third-year ID graduate student at Pratt Institute. Over two years in, understanding what jobs are possible for me and the skills needed to excel in those roles is arcane knowledge I am only beginning to grasp. How this and my personality, passions, and philosophy as a designer can equate to a well-suited job that contributes to a compelling career is a whole other issue. How do others navigate finding their place in the field, and how does their education influence this?

As I reflected on my own experience, I became curious about what drives other students. The voice of students is rarely represented in accounts of the state of design education, though they have powerful insider insights regarding the utility of their curricula.

I set out to see what I could learn from others. I solicited

recommendations for survey participants from instructors and reached out to IDSA Student Merit Award winners. I sent them a short survey via email and received thoughtful written responses from six active graduate students and three recent graduates. The nine participants represent five different industrial design programs in the United States. Four men and five women participated. While the pool was small, the responses were rich.

Here are the questions I asked and the insights they yielded:

What drove you to attend an industrial design graduate program?

Participants gave five key reasons for attending an industrial design graduate program. While some referenced two or more of these reasons, all gave at least one:

• Facilitating a career change

• Leveraging existing skills sets in a new field

• The versatility and openness of the field

• Further exploring a compelling field

• A love of sketching, crafting, and making Four of the designers came to their program to transition from another field, three of them explicitly mentioning the appeal of ID as a discipline that would allow them to harness their existing expertise to move forward. Allen Chou (Arizona State University, MID ’24) saw ID as a discipline that

could leverage his “research skills and creativity.” Charlotte Böhning (Pratt Institute, MID ’23) saw a rare discipline that could employ all her diverse skill sets: “I could see my skills in journalism (interviewing, researching, observing), economics (analysis, marketing, pricing), and art history (aesthetics, color, medium) coming in handy.”

Three designers mentioned their love of sketching, making, and crafting as contributing to the decision to attend a graduate ID program. Four designers cited the versatility and openness of the discipline as compelling factors. Ann Dinh (Rhode Island School of Design, MID ’22) explained, “The ID programs seemed like they would satisfy my insatiable curiosity.” Two designers with an undergraduate background in ID wanted to further explore the industry to deepen their skills and knowledge. Ridima Jain (Pratt Institute, MID ’23) shared, “I decided to pursue a master’s in industrial design to further expand my knowledge and get a global perspective on it!”

Did you know going into the program what area of design you wanted to focus on? If not, at what point were you able to determine that area of focus? What was the process of determining it?

My undergraduate degree is in English. Not coming from a background in ID, I did not know what an education in ID looked like or even could look like until I was in the

middle of one. Comfortingly, I am not alone. Matt Quejada (Pratt Institute, MID ’24) came to ID with a background in engineering and explained, “I was open to learning anything since I felt I hadn’t earned that sense of direction yet.”

The group was split on the question of having a design focus before enrolling, with five designers clear on their direction and the other four undetermined. Those who knew seemed to me impressively specific in their focus, noting interests in medical design, transportation design, furniture design, and UX. Some of those who didn’t enroll with a traditional subgenre of design in mind still had admirable clarity about what they hoped to achieve with their education. Jain knew that she wanted to “improve the quality of life for underserved communities worldwide,” and Dinh knew that she “wanted to focus on the intersectionality between digital and physical environments.”

Of the four designers who did not already have a focus, three of them still do not. More comforting still! While not committed to an explicit design focus, two had determined a thematic focus. Böhning credited her cohort with the discovery, explaining, “I did not go into the program thinking I would be so passionate about waste management, circular products, and sustainability, but time spent with my peers heavily influenced this growing love.” Chou has realized that he is “more interested in the visual aspect of design where the priority of a project focuses more on the

aesthetics.” In contrast, Quejada described his process as one of “elimination,” sharing, “what’s really given me focus is taking time away from classes and doing some internal searching to reflect on what I’ve done in the past and how I might want to apply my skills to an actual area of design.”

Were you able to customize your curriculum to help you with that focus?

Four designers responded to the question of the customizability of their curricula with an unambiguous yes (Chou, Luo, Jain, and Dinh), with both Jain and Dinh mentioning the appeal of being able to take courses outside the ID department. The other five designers essentially also answered yes, but with caveats and qualifications.

Examples of that second flavor of yes included clarifying that one could use a project in an unrelated course to explore the desired area of focus, like Cathy He (Pratt Institute, MID ‘22) and Maggie Jarret (NC State University, MID ’22). He explained that “although there is only one course about toy design, there is some flexibility on other courses’ projects that I can adopt aspects of design for play into those projects.” Jarret qualified that “the projects we worked on as graduate students were mostly open to interpretation.” Hanyu Zhu (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, MFA ’22) mentioned electives and one-day workshops as possibilities, sharing, “At least I can participate in some elective courses.” Böhning mentioned that her lack of background in ID made her curriculum less flexible than her cohorts with ID experience, explaining, “I had to slog through a number of introductory and prerequisite courses (that of course were incredibly valuable, but also limited the flexibility of my curriculum).” I was struck by the lack of enthusiasm in most of the answers to this question, which was apparent across institutions.

The point made by He and Jarrett that the projects in an unrelated class might be tailored to a student’s focus is notable, though not quite what I had in mind as curriculum customization. These answers made me wonder how empowered students feel to customize their curricula at all beyond taking a chosen elective in an available slot.

Electives allow for exploration, but are they serving the desire for specialization?

Quejada addressed the question more philosophically, explaining, “I think the meta-level question is this: Does the curriculum itself guide students to know what they want out of the curriculum?” Though I have asked only a handful of designers at a handful of schools, the answer to Quejada’s question from this research is no.

Are you happy with your decision? Are you excited about a future in design?

Four designers answered this with an unreserved yes (Chou, Jain, Maggie, and Dinh). Two answered yes “so far” (Luo and Zhu). Three answered yes with the qualification that they are happy with their decisions despite some element of disappointment (Quejada, Böhning, and He).

While ultimately happy with her decision, Böhning explained, “Design school has not been as collaborative as I would have hoped (most of our school projects and our theses are done in solitude).” Quejada shared, “I really wish the nuances of the academic and professional environments were more accessible to people outside of it: things like what areas of design are emphasized in each area of the country (and world) or what schools’ particular take is on design.”

I resonate with this sense of going into an ID education relatively ill-informed. It is difficult to know how I could have been any more prepared, however, given how specialized the knowledge is and how siloed it is within the industry itself. Decisions are made with imperfect knowledge every day, of course, but what efforts might ID education make to reduce the knowledge gap for incoming students and to reduce it faster?

All the designers were universally excited about their futures in design. Exclamation points abounded here. Three look forward to the role design will play in technological advancements and interfaces (Chou, Zhu, and Dinh). Some made an interesting distinction between their futures in design and the future of design itself. Böhning noted that “we need to overcome this divide between the old guard and new guard, those who are

deeply attached to traditional ID education and those who place an equal emphasis on design research and interdisciplinary innovation.” Dinh acknowledged “systemic issues with diversity within the profession” but was “optimistic that we can acknowledge the problems and make actionable steps to improve.”

Requesting a Compass

When discussing his program’s curriculum, Quejada said, “There needs to be more emphasis on understanding who we are as designers, rather than what we design.” He continued, “I spent the last two years thinking I could conjure up my unique perspective and practice by wrestling with a curriculum, but in the last three months I’ve experienced so much more growth simply by reaching out to professionals in the field.” Given that the vast majority of ID students will go on to non-theoretical work, a focus on concrete professional work exposure seems highly logical. To what extent is this built into design education? To what extent could it be emphasized?

While the rare industrial design student asks both Who am I as a designer? and What do I want to design?, the designers I surveyed identified as being predominantly on one journey or the other in their design education. Those who entered ID with a clear direction were more likely to be on the What do I want to design? path, and those who entered with no precise direction were more likely to be on the Who am I as a designer? path. To become the kind of agile, versatile designer that so much of the ID job market calls for, engaging in a rich, complex dialogue with both of these paths seems critical. I find the latter Who path to be more powerful as a North Star for one’s design identity (but perhaps that is because I am one of them). I appreciated Jain’s comment that determining an area of focus “seems counterintuitive to the nature of industrial design as a profession.”

That the students who didn’t already have a focus had largely not developed one is intriguing. Each gave a creative alternative answer to the question, suggesting that they do in fact have a focus, a direction, but not one that aligns with the official options. Does this reluctance

to select a specific design subgenre suggest that they are better suited to taking a broad, overarching view? If so, how might a curriculum support this absence of focus just as powerfully as it supports a focus? How might these students understand what their place in the industry could be? It is not necessary to limit oneself to any object or service category in the field of industrial design—as so many of the iconic design heroes demonstrate—but it does seem useful to at least approximate a focus mindset when job hunting.

So, yes, I admit, I do not know what half of the stuff in this fantastically miscellaneous industrial design drawer is. It is not yet clear how much I need to know. I am ready to trust the learning process, although I wonder if design education could do more to earn that trust. In many frustrating moments, I remember being certain that some confusion could have been avoided, though I could not see how. I will find my way, of course, as we all do. I write from the critical stance of love. Vague as my plan is, I resonate with He’s sentiments about a future in design: “I cannot be more excited to pursue a career in design. It feels like I have found my calling.”

—Meghan Day, S/IDSA mday38@pratt.edu

Meghan Day is an industrial design graduate student at Pratt Institute. She holds a BA in English from Harvard University.

Author’s note: I would like to thank the nine research participants who took the time to answer my questions with such care and detail. I would also like to thank Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman for prompting me to do this research and for her feedback throughout the process.

DELIVERING VALUE

UNFOLDING NEW WAYS OF INTERACTING

As designers of user experience, we’re interested in the everyday lives and needs of ordinary people. Even the simplest of patterns and routines can inspire essential design elements. We begin by looking at what’s essential and what poses challenges for users. We work to solve problems and provide solutions that help people overcome the challenges of their daily lives, whether big or small—and in doing so, advancing technology.

As smartphones became an essential companion in our daily lives, users began to demand larger screens, and the race was on to deliver just that. At the same time, users wanted pocket-sized and portable devices, two seemingly opposing asks. So this posed the question, how could we reconcile these demands while solving the problem? The Samsung Galaxy answer was simple, though not easy: Fold the screen!

New Forms, New Interactions

While this was a huge undertaking in itself, developing folding-screen technology was only the beginning. Once we had these new form factors, we realized that designing for a foldable smartphone was very different than for a traditional smartphone. We had to totally rethink the smartphone experience. We also discovered, over time, that these new form factors had the potential to change people’s relationships with their phones. Changes in the form factor also led to new life patterns, and not just for advanced users, but for everyday users as well. Foldables met evolving-user needs in surprising ways.

We launched the first Galaxy Fold in 2019. For something so revolutionary, it was important to provide a seamless transition from the traditional smartphone experience. To streamline the transition, we used the same One UI design foundation that was familiar to Galaxy users. We wanted

users to think, Wow, this is really new, but also familiar.

Since that first Galaxy Fold, we’ve launched a new generation of foldable smartphones every year and first introduced the Galaxy Z Flip in 2020. This year we released the Galaxy Z Fold4 and Galaxy Z Flip4, the fourth generation of the Fold and Flip series. It has been an exciting journey for us, and we’ve learned so much about the potential of this product line along the way.

The Fold began as a way to provide a bigger screen, resulting in better viewing for enhanced productivity, while the Flip started off as a compact and cool device that enabled users to express themselves with something unique. These smartphones have evolved in many unexpected ways, some of which were planned from the beginning, while others were guided by our learnings over time in addition to the invaluable feedback from our users.

Change Shape, Change Behavior

The Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip series were innovative, intuitive ways to solve two contradictory needs for a large screen and a small phone. But we didn’t stop there. From the very beginning, we took advantage of the unique form factor to provide unique experiences too. Users may have started out just wanting a large screen in a compact size, but they’ve now embraced the unique advantages that foldable smartphones offer, and that behavior has guided our ongoing design decisions.

One major example is Flex mode on the Galaxy Z Flip series where you can fold the phone at an angle and set it on a surface for hands-free photos, video chats, and much more. Flex mode usage was 90% on the first-generation Flip and increased to 95% on the Galaxy Z Flip3. People loved all the possibilities that Flex mode brought with its enhanced camera features. Users embraced the functionality

of taking photos and videos from different angles and points of view. The positive response was beyond anything we could have expected.

Another surprise was that Flip users spent far less time on their phones because the foldable form factor helps to manage their digital well-being. Users can quickly check for notifications or other info on the cover screen, without opening the phone, making it more of a conscious decision whether to dive deeper or move on. We were excited about this insight because it helped us recognize a unique benefit of the Flip. We’ve brought that to our design thinking, providing more useful features on the cover screen that help users get what they need quickly without having to open the phone.

When it comes to the Fold, we found that the key purchasing factor was to see more and do more on a larger screen. With that in mind, we updated our large-screen user experience with two key principles: first, provide layouts that let users see more at once and, second, provide interactions that require less movement and fewer steps. To show more at once, we designed expanded layouts that show more information, similar to what a consumer would see on a tablet or a computer. To make interactions easier and more efficient, we redesigned menus and layouts to bring action buttons closer together. This was essential on the large screen where too much finger movement can be difficult

and tiring. With the Galaxy Z Fold4, we’ve added a taskbar that makes it much faster to switch apps and also easier to launch multiple apps in split-screen view.

Form Follows Function, Function Follows Form

Starting with what’s necessary and tackling the challenges, we developed new technologies to provide more screen space while keeping the devices compact. The new designs didn’t just solve existing problems; they also transformed user behavior, changing the way people take photos, interact with their phones, and more. These new behaviors have become natural parts of the everyday lives of the people who use foldable phones.

They also, of course, create all new challenges—and that’s what drives us forward as UX designers. Users imagine new possibilities, and those possibilities become demands, and it’s our responsibility to create innovations to meet them. As the cycle of innovation continues, we’re excited to get to work creating what’s next.

—Yoojin Hong

Yoojin Hong is the executive vice president and head of the UX Team at the Mobile eXperience Business, Samsung Electronics.

EDUCATION PAPER

CRITICAL WRITING SUPPORTING CRITICAL MAKING: THE DESIGN ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

1. Introduction

While traditional design education has been successful in training students in practice-based and problem-solving skills, such overemphasis on applied knowledge seems to occur at the relative expense of developing critical thinking and writing skills to the same level of academic and professional expectation. This gap between the making of and the writing about design is particularly problematic in the 21st century, when the focus and scope of professional designers are increasingly expanding toward more complex subjects that demand greater ability to critically articulate the social, economic, political, technological, and environmental dimensions of design (Carvalho, 2021; Wizinsky, 2022).

The Design Essay aims to address this gap. It prepares students for their final-year writing deliverables by requiring them to think more critically and to incorporate thorough reflections on their design making, culminating in a writtenvisual submission that reflects upon the broader context of their projects, provides justifications for their design decisions, and appraises their process and results according to objective parameters of evaluation.

The present paper describes the structure and delivery of the Design Essay assignment, discussing the initial results based on feedback from faculty involved in the development and assessment process, as well as from a sample of students who completed the submission and received varied marks within the passing-grade spectrum. The paper starts by presenting an overview of some changes in design practice that demand changes in design education. Next, a more specific reflection will be described, looking at the curricular structure of a higher-education institution in the UK that accounts for both product- and furniture-design

majors. The Design Essay is detailed in the subsequent section, followed by a section that explores the data collection and evaluation of the results of a short qualitative study. The paper closes by offering some takeaways based on the research results and their relative significance when considering the education of future designers.

2. A Changing Landscape of Design Practice and Education

As the world accelerates toward the metaverse, a landscape that combines optimism and uncertainty in equal measures emerges. Connectivity has never been more accessible, yet there is mental health crisis; scientific understanding of our planet deepens, yet deforestation and climate issues persist; and wages rise, but the wealth divide widens. Such issues present problems and needs to the design community that are characterized by increasing complexities that cannot be solved by a silver bullet. These types of convoluted, or wicked, problems were first defined by Horst Rittel (as cited by Churchman, 1967, p. B-141) who summarized that they “refer to that class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with different values, and where the ramifications of the whole system are thoroughly confusing.”

While this paper concurs with Rittel’s concise definition, it also asserts that wicked problems have developed an additional, yet significant layer of complexity: the exponential advancement of technology. When combined, these factors present many challenges to the design community, including in higher education where instructors must plan and implement strategies to ensure students

develop the necessary tools to interpret 21st-century wicked problems and respond accordingly. Product designers must ensure that their output is underpinned by a robust rationale. Therefore, Deamer (2020, p. 1) asserts that good studio practice should “interrogate present-day problems to rehearse a positive future. We need to place in the foreground the demand context for our acts, where demand implies both the implicit demands of our society and the demand for people to find their places in the world. In other words, we need to design, in lieu of objects, scenarios for people to interact.”

It is therefore crucial that the pedagogical approach to product design diversifies from the well-established trope that combines practical design skills with critical theory based on design canons, to include an outlook that positions justification for design decisions, at its heart (Scupelli et al., 2018). Consequently, developing curricula that promote a critical mindset throughout the design process by using materials and tools that allow the designer to do reflection in action (Schön, 1983) is paramount. However, such curricula must acknowledge the long-standing dichotomy between writing and design that perpetuates within both our teaching and learning community and the wider world of design.

In their paper “The process of design is almost like writing an essay,” Orr and Blythman (2002) demonstrate how “writing is design” by asking the reader to consider whether the following quotes pertain to either writing or design:

• “It is like composing an epic poem, a concerto.” (Papernak, p.17).

• “It is a conscious and creative communication with materials to achieve human effect.” (Sharples, p. 60).

Surprisingly, Papernak was describing the process of design, while Shaples was describing the process of writing (Orr & Blythman, 2002, p. 40). This serves to highlight not only the commonality between the two disciplines and, indeed, their associated misconceptions but also the lack of development since its publication toward a point where they enjoy parity within design-course structures. This longstanding issue is reflected in the Department for Education’s National Curriculum for A-Level Design and Technology, which describes the subject as “inspiring, rigorous and practical” (DfE, 2014). The document also makes links to

STEM subjects, highlighting mathematics and science, but omits writing as a significant element.

It is therefore unsurprising that students interested in design wish to progress onto undergraduate programs, such as Northumbria University’s BA (Hons) 3D Design, a typical representative of UK design courses. Described as adopting a creative approach that puts three-dimensional prototyping at the heart of the design process in the prospectus’ opening gambit, the strong practical elements of the course are further cemented by emphasizing that students are taught how to use the tools and techniques of workshops, computer labs, and studio spaces to develop and evaluate designs in three dimensions (Northumbria University, 2022).

Recruitment campaigns that position practical components of courses front and center are commonplace among British universities; well-funded, advanced manufacturing facilities are a natural jewel in the crown that capture the imagination of prospective students while perpetuating the trend of creative courses being sold on physical output, despite that being just a component of both design education and the broader design industry.

3. Reflections from Product Design Teaching Essential to the success of a curriculum that seeks to avoid prescribed responses to a problem or need is the integration of contextual studies from the outset. Failure to do this will likely result in responses to project briefs that are a replication of existing solutions, as opposed to the innovation of new ones. A legacy of practice-based, skill-focused education, which continues to offer significant value, must be tempered by placing greater focus on critical thinking and writing.

For this to be successful, instructors must be privy to the prior learning achieved at each stage so that successive content consolidates and develops a student’s skill set in line with the course’s holistic plan. Embedding these higher skills through critical writing from early on will maximize opportunities for students to acquire, apply, and refine a research-led approach that prioritizes the pursuit of meaningful lines of inquiry to better justify their final design outputs.

3.1 Overarching Aim

The proposition of the Design Essay assignment emerges as a reaction to philosophical reflections on current and foreseen changes in the design field. Design is becoming more complex; historical, social, political, economic, and environmental aspects are increasingly affecting the expectations and hopes around design practice and the kinds of futures it can help build. Command of technology and skill-based competencies will, thus, be insufficient to sustain the relevance of the design profession. A more critical stance about which things need to be made and how to make them is paramount, alongside a clearer view of who are the true beneficiaries of the things produced by designers (Böninger et al., 2021).

Additionally, the Design Essay also responds to pragmatic and pedagogical objectives that affect the immediate goals of university education: preparing students to better deliver the written portion of their final-year project requirements. Across their education, students will be required to write in a variety of formats, each demanding discipline-specific language and a continuous search for style (Heller, 2013). The Design Essay seeks to train students in a more academic format of text in preparation for a subsequent culminating piece of writing.

With these two grounding reasons behind the proposition of the Design Essay, an overarching aim could be identified to position this assignment within a broader vision of design pedagogy: to educate designers as thinkers and makers who can contextualize and critically reflect on their practice, equipping them with the means to justify their ideas beyond the proposition of new artifacts.

3.2 Guiding Questions

Considering the above-mentioned aim, two guiding questions can be rendered to inform the crafting of the assignment’s specifications:

• How to embed more criticism in the process and practice of future designers coming out of university education? (Philosophical ambition)

• How to engage design students—traditionally more inclined to perform hands-on tasks—in a more critical assignment focused on academic writing? (Pragmatic ambition)

4. The Design Essay: Writing about Making; Making to Write About

The Design Essay assignment is part of the deliverables for the Context and Identity module within the second year of studies in Product Design, and Furniture and Product Design. The programs are articulated within a usercentered perspective whereby the focus of study promotes a progressive learning experience via emphasizing different aspects of design training and learning broadly structured as such:

• First Year: Development of fundamental knowledge, skills, and experience of the design process and principles.

• Second Year: Exploration of the design industry and broader concepts relating to design focused on professional and cultural demands.

• Third (or Fourth) Year(s): Application of knowledge and skills within innovative projects that highlight contemporary design expertise, emphasizing personal interests and creative identity.

4.1 The Design Essay Assignment

The assignment rationale follows an embedded learning model whereby students learn while making, practice informs reflection, and criticism supports practice. The Design Essay is thus associated with a practical project carried out concurrently. The brief requires students to produce a 2,000- to 2,500-word essay providing critical commentary on a self-directed design project.

The assignment runs for five weeks during which students attend a number of supporting lectures (both skill-focused and context-based). Additionally, students participate in tutorials—individual and group—and have optional open studio sessions, which are sign-up sessions with tutors that rotate in virtual classrooms at predetermined days and times. A core team of context faculty (including fulltime and lecturers) leads the pedagogic activities supporting the assignment. Plus, the studio faculty, leading the selfdirected project front, provides complementary insight and facilitation.

The assessment of the Design Essay is independent of (but related to) the students’ self-directed projects. In that way, the assessment criteria for the assignment revolves around the critical evaluation aspect of their practice-based work, looking at the following elements related to both

No.

Table 1. Students’ grade distribution, Design Essay assignment (2020–21 academic year)

the format and the contents of the submissions: quality and relevance of the presentation, evidence of academic writing and referencing skills, review of secondary research, contextual awareness of design, critical thinking, and quality and justification of a personal brief.

4.2 Critical Thinking, Critical Writing

Criticism is growing strong in design, as it must. On a higher level, awareness and reflection are being directed at broader issues that circumscribe design history, knowledge, and practice as evidenced in recent publications such as The Black Experience in Design (Berry et al., 2022), and Extra Bold (Lupton et al., 2021). While these works build from a strong tradition coming principally from Eurocentric perspectives looking at the roots, evolution, and tensions between design and the capitalistic system of production (for example, Bonsiepe, Manzini, and Papanek), their core contribution lies in shifting the focus to overlooked or subdued issues such as racism, colonialism, gender equality, and representativeness within design.

To facilitate this level and depth of critical thinking, however, undergraduate students must first be able to see themselves as makers whose works impact the reality that extends beyond their immediate creations. The Design Essay adopts a two-fold approach to criticism by pointing the microscope at the students’ designs while inviting them to point the telescope to the world around them. Such ambition is achieved via a teaching program where criticalthinking concepts are introduced, discussed, and defined through weekly lectures; concepts are discussed in relation to the students’ work through seminars and individual tutorials; and students are tasked to complete weekly deliverables whereby they relate the concepts discussed with their creative work.

More specifically, to support the assignment, the concept of critical thinking is framed as an interplay between

three subsidiary concepts: contextualization, justification, and evaluation. Each of these concepts is the subject of a dedicated lecture, in which the terms are presented and defined as follows: contextualization, putting reflection and action in context where the context entails a set of facts, interactions, objects, and people making up for a specific sociotechnical event or situation within a historical timeframe (past, present, and future); justification, a satisfactory or appropriate reason or explanation for design choices according to contextualized parameters for evaluation; and evaluation, determining the value, quality, or importance of something in relation to a desired objective.

5. Evaluation of Initial Perceptions

5.1

Study Aim, Research Design, and Methods

The aim of the study was to capture the perceptions of students and staff in relation to the new Design Essay assignment proposal. A qualitative approach was chosen, focusing on a representative sample of participants from both groups via the application of two questionnaires with three open-ended questions each. Questionnaires were sent via email directly to students previously selected to reflect the spectrum of grades achieved and to all staff involved in making and assessing the assignment.

5.2 Participants and Data Collection

5.2.1

Students

The first implementation of the Design Essay assignment was accomplished in the academic year 2020–2021. Table 1 summarizes the turnaround, which combines 93 submissions from students within product design, and furniture and product design.

Thirteen students responded to the questionnaire; accounting for 14% of all students who submitted their Design Essays. All the respondents received passing grades. For students, the questions were structured around their

experience of the design essay, the lessons learned, and the outcomes achieved.

5.2.2 Staff

A total of 10 staff had different levels of participation in the Design Essay, which included conceptualizing and structuring, delivering lectures or seminars, providing direct student support, and grading submissions. From these 10, three instructors (two in product design and one in furniture and product design) provided feedback to the questionnaires sent, representing 30% of all instructors involved in the assignment. For staff, the focus of the questionnaire was on the conception and implementation of the design essay, the quality of students’ work, and ideas for future development.

5.3 Results

5.3.1

Feedback from Students

Regarding their overall experience of the assignment, students found that the brief was unclear: It was difficult to understand what was being asked in terms of the content and submission format. They said that the lectures were good but the group tutorials were not as helpful and, to some students, were even intimidating. They also said that connections between the Design Essay and their practical projects helped them understand whether the (design) decisions made were reasonable.

In relation to the lessons learned, respondents acknowledged the need for more practice regarding academic writing skills and that writing alongside the design project facilitated reflecting on the choices being made. The students also said the lectures helped them understand the importance of critical thinking and evaluation. Participating students identified a necessity for being more analytical and methodical when reading, as well as when structuring ideas.

Considering their own performance and grades in the assignment, respondents perceived that the process of working and documenting the work done has notably improved since their first year (even when submission and grades were not excellent). Some recognized a need to use more references to substantiate their work and improve the outcome of their Design Essays and that they may have not explained their solution well enough, all of which was pointed out by faculty in the assessment feedback forms.

5.3.2

Feedback from Staff

When considering the process through which the assignment was crafted and the actual assignment proposal, staff said that the concurrent timelines between the practical project and the Design Essay made it harder for students to cope (more time to complete the essay would have been positive). Also, instructors observed that the weekly requirement of students to write 300 words was rarely achieved (if at all). Finally, respondents thought the assessment process was very thorough and collaboration among faculty provided consistency in marking and troubleshooting/sense-checking.

Regarding students’ outcomes and results, participating staff noted that the Design Essay helped prepare students for their third-year submission via the development of skills in critical thinking and academic writing. There were mixed opinions regarding whether the lectures’ delivery structure was confusing or beneficial to structuring the essay, with some thinking it was too prescriptive in defining the submission formats (following the lectures’ topics/titles). Overall, instructors observed that the design aspects (related to the proposed solutions) were often absent from the submissions (all text, with no visual evidence).

When asked to consider strategies and actions moving forward, faculty recognized the need to allow more opportunities to practice writing and critical reflection (in addition to the Design Essay). Like some students, staff also thought the assignment brief needed refining and detailing and to set clearer expectations regarding deliverables and skills/knowledge (with examples where possible). Finally, faculty felt that more personalized feedback/interaction with students (perhaps via more 1-2-1 tutorials) would likely increase participation and elicit better individual performance on average.

6. Analysis and Discussion

Emerging literature points to approaches that address the politics of innovation through engagement with critical contemporary design thought (Rudd, 2021) and that confront historical issues of representation (see Rittner, in Walters, 2021). Looking at the results of the present empirical study, and circling back to the aims and guiding research questions outlined in Section 3, this work elicits the following complementary insights:

In response to guiding question 1, How to embed more criticism in the process and practice of future designers coming out of university education?, this research suggests

that a higher interest and degree of criticism may be accomplished within design programs when and if students can perceive critical thinking and critical writing as core components of their training and educational process, seeing that these dimensions are also (if not equally) valued by faculty, informing curricular structure, and manifested in courses and assignments (such as the Design Essay) that:

• Provide food for thought and engaging briefs that are conducive to critical analysis with an emphasis on contextual issues.

• Facilitate connections between practice and theory, allowing opportunities for embedding critical reflection in the making.

In response to guiding question 2, How to engage design students in a more critical assignment focused on academic writing?, notably, no one goes to design school to become a writer. It is, thus, important to recognize that to promote engagement and learning, particularly toward critical writing, dedicated support and clear stepwise objectives need to be implemented across the educational journey, rather than on isolated, infrequent occasions. It is also key to highlight the role and importance of words— whether spoken or written—in design narratives by:

• Working progressively toward complexity and abstraction with individual support and clear outcome expectations.

• Emphasizing the importance of academic writing in the present (e.g., final-year requirement) and in the future (e.g., the broader context of design practice).

References

Berry, A.H., Collie, K., Laker, P.A., Noel, L.A., Rittner, J. & Walters, K. (2022). The Black experience in design: Identity, expression & reflection. New York: Allworth Press.

Böninger, C., Frenkler, F., Schmidhuber, S. & Spitz, R. (Eds.) (2021). Designing design education. Stuttgart: AvEdition.

Carvalho, F. (2021). Designing on the edge of civilization: Reflecting on the future of design in times of crisis. In International Design Conference, Proceedings of the 2021 IDSA Education Symposium: online. https://www.idsa.org/ educationpaper/designing-edge-civilization

Churchman, C.W. (1967). Guest Editorial: Wicked Problems. Management Science, 14(4), B141–B142. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2628678

Deamer, P. (2020). Design pedagogy: The new architectural studio and its consequences. Architecture_MPS, 18. DOI: https://doi. org/10.14324/111.444.amps.2020v18i1.002

Department for Education (2014). Design and technology GCE AS and A Level subject content. (DFE-00210-2015). Retrieved From: https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/

attachment_data/file/485436/D_and_T_A_level.pdf

Lupton, E., Kafei, F., Tobias, J., Halstead, J.A., Sales, K., Xia, L. & Vergara, V. (2021). Extrabold: A feminist, inclusive, anti-racist, non-binary field guide for graphic designers. Princeton Architectural Press. Heller, S. (2013). Writing and research for graphic Designers: A designer’s manual for strategic communication and presentation. Osceola: Quarto Publishing Group.

Northumbria University (2022). Northumbria 3D Design Homepage [Online]. [Accessed 23 March 2022]. Available from: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/ study-at-northumbria/courses/3d-design-uustdf1/ Orr, S. & Blythman, M. (2002). The process of design Is almost like writing an essay. The Writing Center Journal 22(2), 39–54. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/43442149

Walters, K. (2021). Black, Brown + Latinx design educators: Conversations on design and race. New York: Princeton Architecture Press.

Rudd, C. (2022). A reading list for the politics of design. In A.H. Berry et al. (Eds.), The Black experience in design: Identity, expression & reflection (Chapter 2.6, pp.160-168). New York: Allworth Press.

Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action New York: Basic Books. Scupelli, P., Wasserman, A., Wells-Papanek, D. & Brooks, J. (2018). The futures of design pedagogy, learning, and education. In Next Wave: 21st DMI Academic Design Management Conference. London, 1-2 August. Wizinsky, M. (2022). Design after capitalism: Transforming design today for an equitable tomorrow. Cambridge: MIT Press.

—Fernando Carvalho, IDSA, PhD, MFA, Tom Hurford, I/IDSA, MSt, and Ian Campbell Cole, MA fcarvalho@sfsu.edu; tom.hurford@ntu.ac.uk; ian.campbellcole@ntu.ac.uk

Dr. Fernando Carvalho is an assistant professor in the School of Design at San Francisco State University. Tom Hurford is a lecturer in product design at Nottingham Trent University and a practicing furniture designer/maker. Ian Campbell Cole is a senior lecturer in product design at Nottingham Trent University.

This paper was presented at the 2022 IDSA Education Symposium and selected through peer review for inclusion in this issue. It is presented here in a slightly edited form. For the complete paper, and other 2022 education paper submissions, visit idsa.org/education/education-papers.

CREATIVE BURNOUT: SUFFOCATING THE FUTURE OF DESIGN

A Detailed Analysis of the Effects of Creative Burnout Among Design Students and Professionals

1.

Introduction

Burnout among professional creatives is suppressing creativity and increasing job turnover. Burnout is described as “a psychological syndrome that involves a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job” (Hill et al., 2014a), while creative burnout is more specifically described as “the loss of the ability to generate novel and/ or useful ideas and solutions to everyday problems, function confidently as a contributing member of a creative team, and maintain faith in the creative process for yourself” (Hantula, 1998). This condition has been observed among various creative fields and is proven to affect students as well as practicing professionals. Burnout is known to have a greater impact on creatives due to their need to recharge creativity.

The purpose of this study is to better understand creative burnout among students and professionals to further evaluate and implement changes within creative professions. Methods for achieving these results include conducting secondary research utilizing the databases and search engines available through Kansas State University, an online survey, and semi-structured interviews.

1.1

Causes of Burnout

Various studies reported causes such as high distraction, uncontrollability, multitasking, unrealistic expectations, and dysfunction, but perhaps one of the largest contributions is work-life imbalance. Among a poor work-to-life ratio, people

such as executives, professors, and clients greatly contribute to the previously mentioned causes and are quite possibly the root issue (Espedido et al., 2018; Hill et al., 2014a; Hill et al., 2014b; Pueschel et al., 2018). Constant expectations from superiors paired with ever-changing market trends and impatient clients bring a lot of designers to their breaking point. Creative individuals pursuing a professional career find themselves in a service-oriented profession, emotionally investing in projects from unappreciative clients with little patience and tight budgets (Hill et al., 2014a).

1.2 Symptoms and Effects of Burnout

As a result of these high-pressure environments, creatives experience cynicism, early onset mental disorders, little confidence, and extreme levels of exhaustion (Hantula, 1998; Hill et al., 2014a; Hill et al., 2014b). These effects are often reported in higher levels in young designers as they have high ambition but little confidence in themselves. According to various studies, these short-term symptoms can ultimately lead to long-term medical conditions including coronary heart disease, circulatory issues, sleep disturbances, substance abuse, depression, and anxiety (Hill et al., 2014a). As a result, professionals are leaving their “successful” design careers in exchange for seemingly less successful fields to sustain a better quality of life.

1.3

Area of Study/ Profession

#of Participants

Architecture 27

Interior Architecture 22

Industrial/ Product Design 13

Other 11

Interior Design 5

Landscape Architecture 5 Graphic Design 2

Total 85

Strategies to Measure, Address, and Prevent Burnout

There are a variety of tools to evaluate burnout including psychotherapy, the Heuristic evaluation, and the preferred MBI-General Survey (Ju, 2021). The official MBI-General Survey categorizes burnout by three factors: exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy (Hill et al., 2014a). Participants receive 16 statements representing the three previously mentioned categories and rate how often they experience the statement. The averaged results are compared to a set of standardized ratings, and the participant is then given a burnout rating of low, moderate, or high based on their results (Hill et al., 2014b). Preventative measures can be taken both at a systematic and personal level. Academically, professors could help reduce the encouragement of burnout culture: “Educators may need to reassess the studio culture of long work hours and ‘all-nighters’ … Does the exhaustion from school carry over to their early careers and become an expected ‘norm’ to their detriment?” (Hill et al., 2014b). Employers can encourage employees to practice better balance between work and home life and take further preventative measures to protect employees from unreasonable client expectations (Hill et al., 2014b). Personal preventative strategies such as energy management, stress management, mental exercises, self-monitoring/screening/ care, and a proper work-life balance suggest reduced burnout levels and higher job satisfaction (Hantula 1998; Hill et al., 2014a; Ju, 2021; Pueschel et al., 2018).

1.4 Positive Results of Reducing Burnout

Increasing awareness and reducing burnout levels pose many significant benefits to individuals and design professions. Creative benefits included recharged creativity, highly creative environments, sustainable creativity, and

healthy stress levels within creativity (Byron et al., 2010; Hantula, 1998; Hill et al., 2014b). Personal benefits include feelings of freedom, stronger relationships, personal growth, improved mental health, smarter use of energy, higher renewal of energy, and increased job/life satisfaction (Hill et al., 2014a; Ju, 2021; Pueschel et al., 2018).

1.5 Future Design Considerations Regarding Mental Health and Burnout

Understanding burnout is vital to creating new systems and products. Personal energy sources and consumption must be considered, as a proper balance is required to avoid burnout. To obtain positive results, types of stress and their negative implications must also be addressed, understanding cognitive stressors and divergent thinking tasks as well as the concept that low stress increases performance and high stress decreases performance (Espedido et al., 2018).

1.6 Findings

Gaps in current research provide opportunities for continued exploration in academia, the workplace, and culture/mindset shifts to prevent encouraging burnout. Future research should analyze workplace environments across multiple professions and compare results. Environments with highly satisfied employees should be noted and their strategies potentially implemented. Future design direction should include in-depth analysis of current projects on the market as well as multiple surveys and user studies. Students should be a major focus as they are reported to experience higher levels of burnout and are the future generation of creative professionals. Opportunities for products should focus on encouraging creativity and enabling the user to recharge.

2. Survey

2.1 Purpose of the Survey

Creative burnout is caused by various lifestyle requirements and produces mild to severe symptoms. Current strategies to measure, address, and prevent burnout are not properly implemented to achieve reported positive results. Future design considerations regarding mental health and burnout will utilize existing strategies to properly address and implement preventative strategies to reduce burnout levels. The purpose of the survey is to evaluate burnout levels within creative individuals to gain insight into personal causes, effects, prevention, and coping strategies.

2.2 Methodology

A 22-question survey was distributed online to a group of approximately 275 individuals via email and an anonymous link. The survey granted significant results from participants

Table 1: Participants’ current profession or area of study.

in various creative fields with varying levels of experience. A thematic analysis was conducted to analyze the data. The survey was distributed to creative students, professors, and professionals in the United States. Participants were recruited utilizing existing faculty email lists from Kansas State University, as well as snowball recruitment strategies via anonymous email in various student group chats. The survey plan was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Kansas State University (IRB protocol number: 11092).

2.3 Participants

The inclusion criteria are as follows: (1) Design students, professors, and professionals at least 18 years of age and (2) reside in the United States. In total, 144 participants were recruited by email, and an unknown number were recruited through anonymous links and snowball recruitment strategies. Participants were recruited to represent a variety of creative disciplines. Of the total 113 responses, 90 responses completed over 80% of the survey and were used for the survey analysis. See Table 1 for specific participant information regarding their profession.

2.4 Results

Specific categories such as typical work-week hours, burnout causes and symptoms and coping with burnout and burnout culture proved especially interesting areas of responses.

Typical Weekly Work-to-Life Balance: 43.53% of participants reported working over 40 hours a week, with most of the responses landing between 45 and 60 hours a week. 24.71% of participants spend more than 15 extra hours a week working outside of normal hours. In contrast, 64.71% of participants spend between 0 and 10 hours a week on personal activities outside of work/school

(see Figure 1). This reports evidence of a drastic work-life imbalance, which is a leading cause of burnout.

Burnout Causes and Symptoms: 83.53% of participants felt burnt out on at least one day during the work week. Of those participants, most experienced burnout on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, with low motivation, anxiety, and irritability being the most common symptoms (see Figure 2). The top causes for participant burnout include school, work, internal/personal expectations, and failure (see Figure 3). Data suggests that academia and creative work environments are a leading contributor to burnout and pose a large opportunity for preventative strategies.

Coping with Burnout: Participants primarily do physical activity, spend time with family and friends, and play and listen to music to relieve stress. 55.29% of participants disagreed to some degree with the statement, “I am completely satisfied with my balance between work/school and my home life.” 63.53% of participants agreed to some degree with the statement, “Design is a lifestyle.” Findings suggest that creatives feel consumed by their work and desire change.

Overview of Qualitative Data: Responses were analyzed using thematic analysis. Three themes evolved as a result: causes of creative burnout, burnout preventative strategies, and personal burnout coping strategies.

Causes of Creative Burnout: Participants reported feeling that design culture is subjective, comparative, toxic, overworked, and overstressed. Creative academia is perceived as toxic and glorifying unhealthy behaviors, leading to expectations that students sacrifice their health for design excellence. On an individual level, participants reported feelings of a life-consuming culture with expectations to give their whole self to their work in fear of accusations of not being passionate enough. Participants feel pressured to constantly be accessible and creative regardless of personal

Figure 1 (left to right): The number of hours survey respondents reported working per week, the number of hours spent working outside regular hours, and the number of hours spent on personal activities outside of work.

sacrifice, and good is never good enough. This allows little to no time for personal creativity and space to recharge.

Burnout preventative strategies: Participants reported utilizing do-not-disturb settings on technological devices, separating work/school devices from personal devices, using to-do lists, and creating a set time to turn off work devices or remove oneself from completing work tasks.

Personal burnout coping strategies: Participants reported individual strategies such as watching television or social media, playing music, reading, taking days off, and prioritizing basic health needs such as getting adequate sleep and staying active. On a creative level, participants reported journaling and creating music. Relationally, participants reported socializing with friends, cultivating friendships within the workplace, being intentional with personal relationships, and expressing stress rather than internalizing it. Participants also expressed setting boundaries, such as not working from home or in certain rooms, setting communication standards with ranking superiors, reducing notifications on technological devices, and setting aside days or periods of time to rest.

2.5 Summary

Results conclude that participants feel burnt out at least one day of the week, experiencing symptoms such as low motivation, anxiety, and irritability caused by work, personal expectations, fear of failure, and school. Reported coping strategies include spending time with family and friends, physical activity, and playing and listening to music.

3 Interview

3.1

Purpose of the Interview

The purpose of the interview is to gain insight into personal burnout and how it affects creative individuals with varying levels of experience. Mild symptoms from creative burnout can quickly develop into severe symptoms due to poor implementation of preventative strategies. Future design considerations regarding mental health and burnout should utilize existing strategies to properly address and implement changes to reduce overall burnout levels and produce positive results.

Figure 3: The common symptoms of burnout, according to survey respondents.

Figure 2: The common causes of burnout as reported by survey respondents.

3.2 Methodology

A series of semistructured interviews were conducted in person at Kansas State University as well as online via Zoom. The interviews yielded significant insight regarding creative burnout among creative individuals with varying levels of experience. Responses were analyzed using thematic analysis.

3.3 Data Collection

Participants were recruited via email and chosen based on their level of experience, representing students as well as successful design professionals. Participants include a second-year industrial design student (PA 1), a fifthyear graduate industrial design student (PA 2), and a working industrial design professional with over five years of experience at a large activewear company (PA 3). Data was stored on a password-protected laptop’s One Drive file. The interview plan was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Kansas State University (IRB protocol number: 11092).

3.4 Data Analysis

A detailed thematic analysis was conducted to analyze and

report the data. Multiple themes evolved as a result: factors participants enjoy and dislike, system acknowledgment of burnout, personal burnout symptoms and strategies, and suggested system preventatives.

3.5 Results

Factors Participants Enjoy/Dislike: PA 1 enjoys the handson learning environment and ability to handcraft projects, while PA 2 enjoys the day-to-day task variety and family environment. PA 3 enjoys working with athletes, seeing the final product enable better performance and combining personal passions to create. All participants enjoy the scale of product design.

Student participants report disliking the high level of expectations, which are often unclear, the overly competitive environment, and the lack of design freedom. PA 3 dislikes the overall subjectiveness of design.

System Acknowledgment of Burnout: PA 1 reports that burnout is acknowledged in a humorous way and not taken seriously with no action taken. PA 2 reports that professors are disappointed in students, often asking them to sacrifice outside activities, such as work, to meet deadlines. Academia leaves it up to students to cope instead of providing ways to help them succeed. In contrast, PA 3 reports that burnout is acknowledged and preventative steps are taken within their workplace. They can communicate with their superiors and receive help. Their employer values employee feedback and implements preventative strategies, such as tracking workload, periodic surveys, and designated meeting-free days.

Personal Burnout Symptoms and Strategies: Students report increased stress and anxiety, exhaustion, irritability, a wandering mind, low motivation, sleep disturbances, difficulty socializing/communicating, and no energy to complete personal projects, which is key to recharging their creativity. In contrast, PA 3 reports little experience with burnout but instead feels underworked, leading to similar symptoms such as feeling uninspired and unmotivated. PA 3 also states that designers within their work environment experience burnout but that it is potentially self-inflicted due to high internal expectations over reasonable external expectations. Reported preventative strategies include planning in advance, compartmentalizing schedules, surrounding oneself with people outside of design, staying physically active, and disconnecting from technology. PA 3 reports focusing on the bigger picture rather than the details,

Figure 4: The strategies survey respondents reported using to cope with burnout.

connecting back to the end goal, and focusing on the end user’s needs.

Suggested System Preventatives: Preventative strategies at an academic level include having classes with interlocking assignments, collaborative projects between upper- and lower-year students, and one-on-one meetings to discuss outside commitments and create more reasonable expectations. They suggest creating interdisciplinary lounge spaces for students to socialize, rest, prepare food, etc. On a professional level, PA 3 suggests seeking ways to break up work and de-load when a team member’s plate is too full. Multiple participants proposed including regular wellness days.

3.6 Summary

Participants enjoy the hands-on creative nature of design; however, they dislike the unreasonable expectations and competitive nature. This leads to high exhaustion, extreme stress, and low motivation. Participants partake in various activities to relieve burnout, such as physical activity, task organization, and socializing. Opportunities for burnout prevention include more collaboration within academia, clearer expectations between student and professor, open communication, and spaces for rest and socializing within design communities. Burnout is felt at both an academic and professional level; however, it is significantly more evident in students.

4. Discussion

Future studies should further experiment with suggested burnout-prevention methods to better understand what strategies are effective in combating creative burnout. Studies should include creative individuals with varying degrees of experience and monitor burnout before, during, and after suggested strategies have been applied. Studies should separate students from working professionals to better understand the causes and effects of burnout in specific creative environments, allowing for better creation and implementation of preventative/coping strategies. Future products should consider encouraging mindless creativity and allowing the user to focus on recharging their creativity.

5. Conclusion

Key findings from the survey show that most participants experience creative burnout and have a poor work-to-life balance caused by work, personal expectations, failure, and

school, resulting in low motivation, anxiety, irritability, and extreme exhaustion. Coping mechanisms include time with family and friends, physical activity, playing and listening to music, and personal creative activities. Interview results report that participants enjoy the hands-on creative nature of design but dislike the competitiveness, high expectation, and perfectionism. Potential areas for improvement include more collaboration within academia, clearer expectations between student and professor, and spaces for rest and socializing within design communities. Product opportunities should focus on recharging creativity and reducing creative barriers.

6. References

Byron, K., Khazanchi, S., & Nazarian, D. (2010). The relationship between stressors and creativity: a meta-analysis examining competing theoretical models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 201.

Espedido, A., & Searle, B. J. (2018). Goal difficulty and creative performance: The mediating role of stress appraisal.  Human Performance, 31(3), 179-196. Hantula, T. J. (1998). Avoiding creative burnout.  How, 13(5), 142. https://www. proquest.com/trade-journals/avoiding-creative-burnout/ docview/233364334/se-2?accountid=11789

Hill, C., Hegde, A. L., Matthews, C., & Reed, S. J. (2014a). Seasons of our discontent: Do age, gender, partnership, and parental status affect burnout among interior designers?  Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences, 106(1), 15-23.

Hill, C., Hegde, A. L., & Matthews, C. (2014b). Throwing in the towel: Burnout among practicing interior designers.  Journal of Interior Design, 39(3), 41-60. Ju, Y. (2021).  Leto: A work-life balance system designed for mothers in dualearner families (Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University Graduate School).

Pueschel, A., Tucker, M. L., Rosado-Fager, A., Taylor-Bianco, A., & Sullivan, G. (2018). Priming students for success through energy management: The balancing act.  Journal of Instructional Pedagogies, 20.

—Kayla Roles and Byungsoo Kim, IDSA, PhD roles_kayla@yahoo.com; byungsoo@k-state.edu

An industrial designer from Kansas State University with a passion for design and entrepreneurship, Kayla Roles enjoys creations that stand out and push boundaries. Byungsoo Kim is an assistant professor at Kansas State University’s Department of Interior Architecture and Industrial Design. He is interested in technology, design, and interdisciplinarity.

This paper was presented at the 2022 IDSA Education Symposium and selected through peer review for inclusion in this issue. It is presented here in a slightly edited form. For the complete paper, and other 2022 education paper submissions, visit idsa.org/education/education-papers.

THE NUANCE OF NEED: MAPPING USER NEEDS THROUGHOUT THE DESIGN PROCESS

1. Introduction

The field of design is full of principles, or guidelines, for practicing design with strategic rigor on the path toward successful design solutions. Two design principles loom increasingly large: develop a good understanding of the user and follow a good design process. As such, much has been written and researched about how to develop an empathic understanding of people and how to strategically and systematically turn this profound understanding into successful design interventions. Liedtka and Ogilvie (2011, p. 6): “Design starts with empathy, establishing a deep understanding of those we are designing for… It involves developing an understanding of both their emotional and their ‘rational’ needs and wants.” Many similar examples can be found in recent publications, both academic and popular, on design thinking. It is no surprise, then, that even a cursory review of recent design-research publications yields hundreds of user research methods and design-process models (for a small sample, see Bella & Hanington, 2012) for an increasingly wide range of applications.

Despite the importance placed on understanding need, the author’s research has uncovered conflicting understandings of need among design practitioners and academics alike (Rudolph, 2020a; Rudolph, 2020b). Similarly, little research has explored how different types of need are identified throughout the various phases of design development. How are we to advocate for understanding users and following good practice if we have not made

explicit the direct links between these two (user needs and design process) critical areas of study?

If we aspire to create a holistic design process, one that thoroughly considers the inherent complexities of our diverse experiences, we must endeavor to outline a design process that explicates the various typologies of need throughout a strategic design process. Two important questions emerge: How do product development teams define and identify need(s)? How does their understanding of need impact their design process? These questions are investigated through three phases of inquiry: (1) an analysis of the definition(s) and categorization(s) of need, as outlined by research in cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction, is conducted; (2) a review of design process theory, associated models, and creative problem-solving is outlined, highlighting similarities and overlap for selecting a design process model exemplar; and (3) development of a novel conceptual framework for mapping needs throughout the development process is discussed, including limitations and areas for further research.

2. Defining Need

There is a consensus within the design research community that understanding a prospective user and their needs is critical for identifying important problems to solve (Schön, 1983), conducting successful product development, and supporting business growth (Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Lockwood, 2009). Similarly, the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration (FDA, 2011), which regulates medical-device development in the United States, has mandated: “Each manufacturer shall establish and maintain procedures to ensure that the design requirements relating to a device are appropriate and address the intended use of the device, including the needs of the user and patient.” Despite overwhelming support for understanding needs, previous research has revealed often disparate interpretations of need (Rudolph, 2020b). Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (n.d.) definition of need supports the common interpretation among design researchers and practitioners: 1: necessary duty, obligation; 2: a) lack of something requisite, desirable or useful; b) a physiological or psychological requirement for the well-being of an organism; 3: a condition requiring supply or relief; 4: lack of the means of subsistence.

Historically, need has often been defined as the physiological or psychological requisite(s) to achieve a higher-level human goal, such as self-actualization (Maslow, 1970). There exists a lengthy epistemological history of universal needs definitions and taxonomies. Maslow (1970) outlined five needs in his Theory of Human Motivation, Sheldon et al. (2001) identified 10 psychological needs, the Center for Nonviolent Communication (2005) outlined 75 universal needs separated into seven categories, and Deci and Ryan (2000) reduced the number to three. The number and organization of universal needs are, however, irrelevant, as the examples discussed here focus primarily

on the fulfillment of self-actualization, improvement, personal betterment, etc.

More importantly, perhaps, is the relationship between needs and goals. In all cases noted above, the needs are the “physiological or psychological requirement[s]” for achieving the stated goal (e.g., well-being, self-actualization, etc.). To put it simply, needs are the missing element, the “lack of something requisite,” for achieving the goal. Wants, desires, and wishes all behave similarly to goals—they are aspirational targets to be achieved. The difference between goals, wants, desires, etc., is a matter of degrees: the time, effort, and resources expended to achieve the aspirational target. The requisite or missing elements to achieve these aspirations, however, can always be defined as the need. The need is never the target, but rather the means by which one achieves their goals.

What happens when the goals are more specific or, perhaps, less lofty than Maslow’s goal of human selfactualization? The distinction between universal (though certainly not universally accepted) needs and other types of needs requires we define a more nuanced categorization of needs, one based on the type of goal to be achieved.

3. Categorization of Needs

If universal needs are intended to outline the basic psychological and physiological requirements for achieving “everything that one is capable of becoming” (Maslow, 1970, p. 13), where does this leave needs that are highly

Figure 1. A visual representation of Carver and Scheier’s three-level organization of goals with the associated need types required to fulfill these goals.

context or culturally dependent? What is the relationship between practical everyday needs and the somewhat loftier universal needs?

Fortunately, this question has been explored in the fields of both psychology and human-computer interaction. The seminal work of social and personality psychologists Carver and Scheier (1998) explores human motivation and goal-directed activities and their impact on one’s behavior and decision-making. Based on their research, they postulate a three-level hierarchal organization of goals: (1) motor-goals (physical interactions), (2) do-goals (tasks or activities), and (3) be-goals (basic human psychological needs that motivate action). The three-level organization of goals is important because it suggests there are different typologies of need. Needs can be defined as the requisite elements for achieving the three distinct types of goals and categorized according to the type of goal being addressed. An overview of the relationship between needs and goals is outlined in Figure 1.

The three-level categorization of goals is critical to understanding the different types of needs that must be addressed during the design process. Some needs, especially those that are required to achieve do- or motorgoals, are inescapably linked to a product or system (e.g., the solution). For example, an orthopedic surgeon conducting an ACL repair using traditional laparoscopic instruments will have significantly different needs than a surgeon conducting an ACL repair using a surgical robot. In this example, the goal appears, at first glance, to be largely the same (to conduct successful ACL repair), but the requirements (needs) necessary to conduct the repair (e.g., knowledge, surgical tools, steps, physical capabilities, etc.) are largely defined by the selected solution space (traditional laparoscopic instruments versus a surgical robot). The user’s goals, therefore, are very much “mediated by the interactive product” (Hassenzahl, 2010, p. 11). The doand motor-goals change depending on the solution to be interacted with, and as such, the needs required to effectively achieve one’s goals are largely dependent on the selected interactive solution. This further emphasizes the importance of understanding need(s) through the lens of all three goal types (motor-goals, do-goals, be-goals) throughout the design process.

Combinatory play with Carver and Scheier’s threelevel categorization of goals reveals an alternative way of understanding two common goals in design: Framing the problem and defining the solution space.

Framing the problem. The combination of be-goals and do-goals defines the problem space: the tasks people are attempting to accomplish and the motivations driving their behavior. In many ways, this is what Schön infers when he uses the phrase “framing the problem.” This is the same logic that supports the Nielsen Norman Group’s recommended structure for creating a “user need statement”: “Traditional need statements have 3 components: 1) a user, 2) a need, and 3) a goal” (Gibbons, 2019). Importantly, neither the conceptual direction nor the technology required to implement a solution is required to be defined at this point. According to previous research (Rudolph, 2020b), this is the combination of goals that many practicing designers define as a need. Nevertheless, defining the problem space can be understood as developing a clear understanding of be- and do-goals.

Defining the solution space. The combination of do-goals and motor-goals, on the other hand, informs the solution space. The goals in these two categories are largely determined by the constraints defined by the conceptual design direction, including selected technologies, and must be validated to ensure successful interaction with the product, service, or system. Motor-goals, driven entirely by the designed experience, will become more apparent and specific as the solution is further developed. See Figure 2 for a visual representation of this general framework.

Towards a Holistic Design Approach. As has been discussed, needs are always in the service of a goal, and goals can be largely defined by a three-tiered hierarchy of motivation. As Hassenzahl (2010, p. 13) suggests: “Designing and evaluating experiences implies to take all three levels seriously.” So far, we have established how these needs might be considered in defining two distinct areas of the design process (framing the problem and defining the solution space), but there is clearly more to be considered. If we are to achieve a more holistic design process, one that considers the various types of needs, we will need to consider how these needs are integrated into a more robust design process, one that allows us to deal with complex challenges and directs us toward an effective solution in an organized manner.

4. Design Process Theory and Models

4.1 Defining Process Theory

Liedtka and Ogilvie (2011, p. 8): “But design brings more than just a set of principles; it also brings a methodology and a collection of tools that can help us realize those

aspirations.” Design process theory provides the structural, often sequential, framework to guide strategic problemsolving. Design process theory, historically, has been communicated in the form of a process model: a series of activities, methods, or phases of work aiding in the flow from problem space to solution space. The individual methods, often conducted to achieve specific goals, are combined into phases of work with higher-level objectives (e.g., defining the problem, developing novel ideas, etc.). In industry, design process models have often been used to ensure a consistent approach to design, to enable a reliable culture for design teams, and to ensure design teams follow industry best principles and practices (Iversen et al., 2018). The complexity of the model will, of course, vary greatly depending on the domain, context, and complexity of the challenge being addressed.

4.2 Process Models—Historical Overview

Various design process models have been proposed over the last century, many of which can be attributed to early research in creative problem-solving (Boden, 1991) and the subsequent design methods movement of the 1960s (Cross, 1984). The design methods movement, in particular, aimed to discover the underlying logic of designing and developing a universal design approach in the style of the scientific method (Beck & Stolterman, 2018). The interplay of experience, observation, reflection, concept development, and evaluation, seen in Kolb’s Model of Experiential Learning (1984), has had a significant influence on the more recent design thinking movement (Hugentobler e al., 2004).

With renewed interest in the design process over the past 30 years or so, creative problem-solving models have been adapted for a wide range of applications and fields of study, including brand and customer experience (Lockwood, 2009), innovation (Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Verganti, 2009), business (Brown & Kātz, 2009), project management (Dunne & Martin, 2006; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011), social change (Brown & Wyatt, 2010), and service design (Stickdorn et al., 2011), to name just a few. While many of the design-process models are communicated using memorable acronyms and visual metaphors, such as the double diamond (Design Council, 2019) or funnel (FDA, 2011), the processes share significant overlap in content, sequence, and advocacy for an iterative process of ideation, prototyping, and testing with representative users. See Table 1 for a small sample of existing design process models.

4.3 Establishing a Design Process Model Exemplar Howard et al., (2008) conducted an extensive analysis of design-process models, comparing models outlined in engineering design research to models outlined in creativity, and found significant consistency among the models. Models in engineering design, for example, could be roughly organized into six distinct phases of work: establishing a need, analysis of a task, conceptual design, embodiment design, detailed design, and validation. Analysis of creative process models yielded four distinct phases of work: analysis, generation, evaluation, and validation. Engineering models, as outlined above, tend to divide analysis and validation into two separate phases of work. This is not

Figure 2. Be-goals combined with do-goals determine the problem space—defining the what and why of the design opportunity. Do-goals combined with motor-goals determine the solution space—defining how the solution works to achieve specific tasks.

to suggest that one model alone is absolute, perfect, or correct, but the overlap serves to highlight a cumulative foundation of knowledge in design research and design process models, building off previous research, knowledge, and practice (Beck & Stolterman, 2018).

The consistency between existing design process models is clear and can be generally summarized as design informed by an empathic understanding of the user and their needs; divergent ideation, often involving both representative users and multidisciplinary teams, rapid prototyping and hands-on experimentation and refinement, and iterative cycles of testing, evaluation, and down-selection. These phases often take place concurrently with business analysis and planning (Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011) and have become synonymous with the principles and practices of design thinking (Lockwood, 2009).

The verbiage used to describe the phases of the design process are, perhaps, not important. The objectives of each phase are, however, critically important as it is the objectives of each phase that help define which goals and needs should be addressed throughout the design process. For clarity, four distinct phases have been selected as an appropriate design process model exemplar for integrating need identification throughout the design process: immersion, ideation, refinement, and validation. This is not to suggest that this is the only design process that can be used, but rather it is an appropriate starting point given the observed overlap in design process models.

5. Phase Objectives

Before mapping goal and need types to the design process, it is important to clarify the objectives of each of the four phases outlined above. Briefly, immersion focuses on developing a deep understanding of the problem space to be explored (Design Council, 2019). The primary objectives of immersion include defining groups of people with similar goals and/or aspirations, understanding the contextual situation (time and place) in which goal-directed activities take place, and identifying high-level objectives regardless of existing solutions. As Stickdorn, et al. suggests (2018, p. 85), immersion is intended to “make sure you are solving the right problem before solving the problem right.”

Ideation, on the other hand, focuses on developing a wide range of ideas, conceptually, digitally, and physically (e.g., prototypes) to meet the aspirational goals identified through immersion. Importantly, ideation is also the phase in which the team must identify all the tasks, activities, and behaviors that people currently participate in to achieve their goals. Often, this takes place in the form of ethnographic research, market research, and/or competitive audits to understand the current ways in which people accomplish higher-level goals. The conceptual design direction should be largely identified by the end of the ideation phase.

Refinement involves the detailed design work required to realize the conceptual design solution. The refinement phase is inherently iterative, with multiple rounds of prototyping and testing to ensure prospective users can effectively interact

Wallas (1926)

Preparation

Incubation Intimation Illumination

Osborn (1963) Fact-finding Idea-finding Solution-finding

Parnes (1981) Mess-finding Problem-finding Idea-finding Solution-finding

Schneiderman (2000) Collect Relate Create Donate

Brown & Kātz (2009) Inspiration Ideation Validation

Stickdorn et al. (2011) What is? What if? What wows? What works?

UK Design Council (2019) Discover Define Develop Deliver

Table 1: Sample of design process models.

with the design solution to achieve both their task-based and aspirational-oriented goals.

Finally, validation requires testing the designed solution to ensure it has met the aspirational goals (be-goals), preferred approach for achieving those goals (do-goals), and basic psychological and physiological goals (motor-goals) defined during earlier phases of work. True validation often occurs only after the product has been made available for use (e.g., on the market).

6. Toward a Holistic Design Process

As McCarthy and Wright (2004) suggest that one’s thoughts, ideas, emotions, body, and context are inseparable, complex, and inextricable. Similarly, the interplay between sensation, emotion, intellect, and action is situated in a particular place and time (Overbeeket et al., 2002). Together, these facets of our situated reality determine our experience with interactive systems. A starting point for developing a more holistic design approach would be to consider the categorical distinction of users’ goals, and the requisite needs to fulfill these goals, throughout the design process. See Figure 3, which outlines a framework for integrating needs, categorized by goal type, throughout a four-phase design process.

Immersion. From a practical perspective, there is value in focusing on specific types of goals and needs at individual phases of the design process as it helps the design team identify clear questions, objectives, and, as discussed later, methods to achieve those objectives. During the immersion phase, the design team can focus on high-level be-goals in order to understand the aspirational goals people are trying to accomplish, regardless of the techno-socio solutions available on the market today. To use a medical example, an orthopedic surgeon might aspire to become the most effective and highly skilled ACL surgeon available to support star athletes. To use a more everyday example, one might aspire to be viewed as a caring leader who regularly contributes to the positive growth of a local community. It is helpful for design teams to understand what motivates people to behave or act before deciding on a particular solution space to pursue. Defining the primary motivations, or be-goals, can help provide focus by narrowing the field of possible solution spaces to explore. It would be highly unproductive to consider motor-goals at this point in the process, as there is no solution to evaluate.

Ideation. The activities, actions, and behaviors people engage in to accomplish aspirational goals are, of course, highly varied. To use the previous example of the orthopedic

surgeon, one surgeon might decide to learn the most advanced technical solution on the market while another surgeon might work closely with a medical-device startup to develop a completely novel solution for future ACL repairs. The aspirational goal is largely the same (e.g., to provide the safest and most effective ACL repair solution to patients), but how they have chosen to achieve this goal is quite different. The ideation phase, therefore, encompasses both developing an understanding of existing solutions on the market and a process for deciding on a particular direction (solution space) to enable one’s aspirational goals. The ideation phase, therefore, focuses on understanding do-goals, which is to say its core objective is to understand how an individual would prefer to accomplish their aspirational goals. In doing so, the team can decide on the general solution space or product category to pursue or, alternately, develop a completely novel approach to serving one’s aspirational goals. Do-goals can be evaluated through early conceptual visions (nonfunctional prototypes, storyboards, etc.) to ensure the fundamental idea advances the prospective user’s goals in compelling and meaningful ways. Importantly, the conceptual vision for the product, service, or system should be largely defined by the end of the ideation phase.

Refinement. With the conceptual solution largely defined, design teams can turn their focus toward more detailed concept development during the refinement phase, evaluating functional and interactive concepts to ensure they enable people to accomplish the tasks and activities to meet their goals, and do so in a safe, efficient, and effective manner. In refinement, the focus largely shifts to motor-goals and the fundamental human-factors-related needs required to achieve these goals. Evaluation of motor-goals can be conducted through human-factors engineering methods, such as usability testing. Motor-goals are strategically important for design teams as they provide a clear link to defining product requirements (e.g., button sizes, display contrast requirements, size and weight requirements, etc.). Motor-goals can be objectively tested or measured for evaluating success.

Validation. Finally, validation occurs as the productdevelopment life cycle nears completion and is often not fully validated (or invalidated) until the product is made available to the general public. Validation encompasses evaluation of all three levels of goals, including be-, do-, and motor-goals, as well as the associated needs. In practice, the design process is cyclical, as products are continuously reevaluated, redesigned, and redeployed in the market.

7. Discussion

Categorizing needs according to a three-level hierarchy of goals provides a novel yet practical framework for integrating need identification throughout the design process. The implications have been described on a macro level, aiding in the definition of the solution space versus the problem space, as well as a micro level, providing guidance for considering goals and needs throughout a four-phase design process model. The inextricable relationship between needs and goals has also made clear that, despite often cited definitions of need, the solution space often defines the needs. This is certainly the case when needs are categorized according to do- and motor-goals. The mapping of needs identification to an established design process model also provides important implications for practicing design professionals. By focusing on specific goal types during individual phases of development, design teams can better develop more focused research questions, clarify process objectives, and select appropriate research activities for each phase of the design process. Further research into selecting specific research methods for each phase described in this model is clearly warranted.

There are, of course, limitations to this model. Unforeseen challenges arise in everyday corporate environments that might quickly limit a team’s ability to stay the course and carry out the model from start to finish to realize its full potential. As Iversen et al. (2018) have shown, many design-

led corporations and consultancies do not regularly adhere to the best design processes, as factors ranging from management preferences and internal deadlines, among others, often play a role in how design processes are managed. In addition, it remains to be seen if the mapping advocated here provides sufficient flexibility for the wide range of disciplines, domains, and problem types designers face today. Further research into these areas will, no doubt, affect the design process model and methods for integrating need identification throughout the development process.

8. References

Beck, J., & Stolterman, E. (2018). Three arguments about the current state of scientific design process theory. In Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change—DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28. June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi. org/10.21606/drs.2018.555

Bella, M., & Hanington, B.M. (2012). Universal methods of design: 100 ways to research complex problems, develop innovative ideas, and design effective solutions. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers.

Boden, M. A. (1991). The creative mind: myths & mechanisms. Basic Books. Brown, T., & Kātz, Barry. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation (1st ed.). Harper Business. Brown, T. & Wyatt, J. (2010). Design thinking for social innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 8(1), 31.

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. (1998). On the self-regulation of behavior. Cambridge University Press.

Center for Nonviolent Communication. (2005). Needs Inventory. The Center for Nonviolent Communication. https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needsinventory

Figure 3. A four-phase design process model with inputs derived from Carver and Scheier’s three-level hierarchy of goals.

Cross, N. (1984). Developments in design methodology. Wiley. Deci, & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of goal pursuits: Human seeds and the self-determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01

Design Council. (2019, September 10). What is the framework for innovation? Design Council’s evolved Double Diamond. Design Council. https://www. designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/what-framework-innovation-designcouncils-evolved-double-diamond

Dunne, D., & Martin, R. (2006). Design thinking and how it will change management education: an interview and discussion. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 512–523. https://doi.org/10.5465/ AMLE.2006.23473212

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (2011). Applying Human Factors and Usability Engineering to Medical Devices: Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff. CDRH

Gibbons, S. (2019, March 24). User need statements: The ‘define’ stage in design thinking. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/userneed-statements/

Hassenzahl, M. (2010). Experience design: Technology for all the right reasons Morgan & Claypool Publishers.

Howard, T., Culley, S., & Dekoninck, E. (2008). Describing the creative design process by the integration of engineering design and cognitive psychology literature. Design Studies, 29(2), 160–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. destud.2008.01.001

Hugentobler, H., Jonas, W., and Rahe, D. (2004). Designing a Methods Platform or Design and Design Research. In Redmond, J., Durling, D., and de Bono, A (eds.), Futureground—DRS International Conference 2004, 17-21 November, Melbourne, Australia. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drsconference-papers/drs2004/researchpapers/12

Iversen, S., Kunø, M., and Vistisen, P. (2018). The Role(s) of process models in design practice. In Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P., & Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change—DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28. June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/ drs.2018.289

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall.

Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2011). Designing for growth: A design thinking toolkit for managers. Columbia University Press.

Lockwood, T. (ed.) (2009). Design thinking: Integrating innovation, customer experience, and brand value. Allworth Press.

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McCarthy, J., & Wright, Peter. (2004). Technology as experience. MIT Press. Osborn, A.F. (1963). Applied imagination: Principles and procedures of creative problem-solving (3rd ed.). Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Overbeeket, C. J., Djajadiningrat, J. P., Hummels, C. C. M., & Wensveen, S. A. G. (2002). Beauty in usability: forget about ease of use! In W. S. Green, & P. W. Jordan (Eds.),  Pleasure with products: beyond usability (pp. 9-18). Taylor and Francis Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780203302279

Parnes, S.J. (1981). The magic of your mind. Bearly Limited.

Rudolph, J. (2020a). Tower of Babel: The conflicting semantics of user needs. Proceedings of DRS2020. Conversation. August 10-14, 2020: Sydney, Au. Rudolph J. (2020b). Redefining User Needs. In: Di Bucchianico G., Shin C., Shim S., Fukuda S., Montagna G., Carvalho C. (eds) Advances in Industrial Design. AHFE 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1202. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51194-4_41

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—James Rudolph, IDSA jrudolp2@nd.edu

James Rudolph is an assistant professor of industrial design at the University of Notre Dame. His work occurs at the intersection of advanced technological breakthroughs and pivotal healthcare challenges.

This paper was presented at the 2022 IDSA Education Symposium and selected through peer review for inclusion in this issue. It is presented here in a slightly edited form. For the complete paper, and other 2022 education paper submissions, visit idsa.org/education/education-papers.

ACADEMIA 360° CHANGING DIRECTION

STUDIO ADJACENT: WHY STUDIO EDUCATION IS STILL PART OF THE FUTURE

Environments are both physical and intellectual. As sentient social beings, perhaps we have always known this, but COVID-19 brought to the forefront the similarities and differences between the two. The pandemic saturated us with remote connectivity, and while it made that technology better, it also reminded us of the value of rubbing shoulders to meet our social and intellectual needs.

This short essay is a case for studio education. To be clear, this argument is also an open question about a blend of modalities and how different definitions of a studio environment intersect and overlap. What’s more, what is the persevering hope for the studio? Have we not always used the studio community to assist in developing our best work? Science writer Steven Johnson encapsulates the foundational question in his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, asking, “What kind of environment creates good ideas?” According to Johnson, the simple answer is that “innovative environments are better at helping their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible, because they expose a wide and diverse sample of spare parts—mechanical or conceptual—and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts.”

The Adjacent Possible

Johnson cautions against complacency; he says to be certain to explore the edges of possibility where collisions happen as different perspectives converge in shared physical or intellectual space. In his newsletter, Adjacent Possible, he pays homage to theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. With respect to evolution (biology, technology, innovation), the adjacent possible refers to what is possible in the immediate future. Johnson believes such leaps are most transformative through an intersection of multiple disciplines and in shared

spaces, like what sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the third place, a connective public environment. Coffeehouses are one such example, and I suggest that design studios are best when they lean in this direction. Studios (and ateliers) have a long history as teaching spaces for design and art. What should we not forget about that history and what should evolve?

When you look at innovation in nature, Johnson says that good ideas in open-ended environments tend to be more innovative than those that are more siloed. Further, he notes, “Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, and recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders.”

For the first decade of the 2000s, I worked on a National Science Foundation (NSF) project that hosted an advisory team of academics, architects, physicists, mechanical and electrical engineers, acoustic experts, and exhibit and product designers. The very formation of the team occurred through serendipity as we each bumped into people with discrete interests and perspectives. Crossing those disciplinary borders was both essential and the lifeblood of the project.

In 2011, I worked with another multi-university team on a different NSF-funded project that examined studiobased learning for teaching computer programming. The ethnographic study aimed to illuminate the necessary constituent parts of the studio—for any discipline. The findings showed tools of fluency (the iterative generation of ideas) and clear communication (using discipline conventions) as essential components of the studio operation. Exercises in the study focused on these elements but also on collective knowing: how students could pool their knowledge, especially in research and early conceptual

beginnings, and allow that influence into their individual work.

Collaboration with others is essential to seeing the design problem in new and different ways, serving to both broaden solution possibilities and assist in idea refinement. This is obvious to those of us familiar with design studios, but somewhat foreign, at the time, to disciplines such as computer science. And this is, of course, one of Johnson’s points: we should not only collaborate with our own disciplinary teams but also with multidisciplinary players.

Form & Materials Workshops

Communication History, Ethics&Philosophy

As we examined our geographical distances as project collaborators, we often returned to open discussions about the possibility of virtual studios, and this was 10 years ago. We knew that if the question was not palpable and ubiquitous, then it certainly would be in the future.

Online, Offsite

The pandemic, and the rush of technological platforms before that, prompted multiple online tools for instruction and shared intellectual space. At this year’s International Design Conference in Seattle, I paid close attention to one team’s particular take on virtual design education, Offsite, which is developing 12-week online programs taught by industry professionals. Offsite is an offshoot of the designeducation nonprofit Advanced Design (AD), headquartered in Chicago, that sponsors design-based initiatives such as programming for high school students. AD and Offsite have a symbiotic relationship that often connects AD participants—which include students and professionals from high schoolers to experienced designers—with the online program as students and teachers.

I came away with two observations about the Offsite endeavor. First (and foremost), we must experiment with and evolve academia. They are doing that. It is intrinsic to education that we dissect, recombine, and fuse (as Johnson suggests) our methods so that we do not lose existing value but also expand while innovating on the wings of technology.

I recall saying to my portfolio class many years ago that you should always walk into an interview with a bag of tricks. The phrase simply means that you should have multiple platforms for showing and explaining your work. I believe the same is true of education. I once believed that if you have 18

SpecialTopics:DeepDi

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Anatomy & Ergonomics

XU / U I & R aese r hc

The base curriculum for a new product design program at the University of Kentucky. Each studio is paired with an adjacent course with shared content, allowing key areas of study to be threaded through the studio curriculum, and special-topics courses allow for impromptu and in-depth course ideas.

students in your studio, you should be prepared to say something in 18 different ways. I still believe this, but I also take the long view now that a program, a system, must be nimble in the way that its houses and delivers education.

My second observation in Seattle was a question: Could the Offsite idea be more complex in its online experiment? Could it adjoin traditional university design programs? These are not trivial pursuits; the academy moves at a snail’s pace. But I believe that the pandemic has pushed reexamination in such a way that it may be exactly the moment for persuasive action. Some traditional design programs now have accommodations for professors of practice (what a good idea!). That title and framework could be expanded to invite industry champions, such as Offsite, to plug into the academic system. Furthermore, practice and academia should have their own shared coffeehouse. Conferences are a stable convention, but perhaps we should expand that definition also.

PRD 120 Form Studio 5

PRD 121 Product Design Studio I 5

PRD 220 Product Design Studio II 5

PRD 221 Product Design Studio II 5

PRD 321 Product Design Studio III 5

DES/BME 170 Human Anatomy for Design 3

DES/BME 271 Introduction to Ergonomics 2

DES/EGR DES/BME 371 Ergonomics 1

PRD 320 Product Design Studio III 5 STUDIO SEQUENCE STUDIO ADJACENT An excerpt from the University of Kentucky's Product Design curriculum showing the studio and adjacent course sequence.

Studio Adjacencies

As an academic who has now helped launch two industrial/ product design programs, I have had the opportunity to closely inspect and deliberate over what programs should be thinking about to be future-forward. Most recently, I wrote the base curriculum for a new program in product design at the University of Kentucky (UK) in consultation with faculty from the biomedical engineering program. My question as I arrived on campus was, Why would you choose this university?

I spent two years trying to understand both the natural landscape of Kentucky and the opportunities of the campus and its significant contiguous healthcare system of colleges and community interface. I present this case study not to advocate for this program over others but to suggest how we might rethink, reorganize, and infuse our traditional approach to design education and specifically how we think about the studio.

The UK program, now in its third year, launched with a standard starter curriculum. However, there is a variation in the studio format: Every studio is paired with an adjacent course. One outcome from a 2017 roundtable workshop on the future of industrial design education highlighted the need for some topics to be continuously threaded through the curriculum. Why are some courses typically placed only once in the student experience? The UK experiment supplements the studio sequence with important topics, running them concurrent to the studio and with shared project content, and then the adjacent topics course repeats and advances the material through future studiocourse pairs. In developing the UK curriculum, we focused on anatomy, ergonomics, and UX/UI with beginner and advanced colloquia bookending the sequence.

Secondly, we included a series of special-topics umbrellas for spontaneous, specific course subjects. Within rigorous academic regulations, the special-topics format is a way to provide a normal structure while allowing for impromptu course ideas from both faculty and students. My

DES/BME 372 User Experience + Interface Design 1

DES/BME DES/BME 272 Introduction to User Experience 2

first experience with this idea was at Virginia Tech during the first decade of that program. I brought the concept forward for the new UK curriculum for which students are required to take a number of special-topics units to fulfill their degree, but they have latitude in their choices and schedule. Each category has an unlimited portfolio of course options, dependent on faculty and practitioner availability. Further, the categories are defined such that they can include humanities-centric courses.

The real opportunity might be for organizations such as Offsite to plug into this type of academic umbrella. I first thought about a similar type of industry connection early in the pandemic during our first year of the program at UK. Hiring was paused at the university; so we managed with only two on-the-ground faculty and plenty of virtual support from various points across the U.S. Hearing no complaints, I observed that this blend of modalities happily diversified the student experience.

That year set me thinking about how we might best constitute a design faculty. Would it make more economic and intellectual sense to diversify the type and/or location of the faculty? To be clear, I am not advocating for a full shift to online education, for all the reasons I have outlined above. I am not yet convinced that virtual studios can ever replace the shoulder-to-shoulder coffeehouse experience that Johnson describes or that I observed in my NSF projects. I am not certain that I want a virtual studio even if it can be improved and made more corporeal.

Adaptive Reuse

campus-based free-choice studios where students act on their commitment to interdisciplinary design for social good, endeavoring for real-world collaboration. DFA’s executive director, Sharon Klotz, says it best, “The world needs more empathetic, collaborative, and daring problem-solvers. To nurture that future, we need to model, incentivize, and reward sustained systems thinking, comfort with ambiguity, resilience, immersion, and curiosity—the very competencies and habits of mind at the core of integrated design thinking.”

We must also learn from the MASS Design Group, which operates with the architectural creed of working adjacent to and with communities to build a climate-positive future. It designs a sustainable ecosystem in each project, including a supply chain that is “sustainable, resilient, and regenerative.”

As author and urban theorist Jane Jacobs threads throughout her seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, new groups, ideas, and initiatives are often born in abandoned relics. Johnson cites Jacobs and amplifies her finding, using first Darwin’s coral reef ecosystem as an analog for how we must “connect, fuse and recombine” our resources as the map for innovation. What makes the reef so inventive is not the struggle between the organisms but the way they have learned to collaborate: the coral and the zooxanthellae and the parrotfish borrowing and reinventing each other’s work. The reef has unlocked so many doors of the adjacent possible because of the way it shares.

In 2015, I set out to save and reuse a tobacco warehouse as the new inclusive home for the College of Design at UK. It was a seven-year journey that is its own

story, but the initial effort was to make good use of the robust remnants of this 1917 structure and to make a moral and economic case for a small college to undertake such an investment. It was also an opportunity to walk our talk, be the physical and intellectual example for design students while making the building a metaphor for reusing and adapting spare parts.

If academia is to remain relevant, it must embrace wide open space, both physical and intellectual. And it must become nimble in its structure, reconsidering how it is that we are in school. Must we always be inside a studio? Or can we expand the definition of the studio experience to include less physical or different physical spaces and still be considered in studio? Can we have both?

Change does not come easy, and it is not the same thing as transformation. Change is all the hard things we do: losing a place, finding a new place, losing people, finding new people, losing our way, finding a new way. Transformation is something that happens to us because we make a change. It is the only thing that lets us know how expansive and elastic we are.

—Mitzi Vernon, IDSA vernon@uky.edu

Inaugurating a new product design program and the new Gray Design Building, Mitzi Vernon has just completed her seventh year as dean of the College of Design at the University of Kentucky.

The forthcoming Gray Design Building (shown following the interior demolition in September 2022) will provide wide-open studio spaces.

IPADS IN PRAGUE: AN ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW AND INDUSTRY COLLABORATION

Walking through Prague’s Old Town Square offers a unique design experience. It is one of the few cities in Europe that was not destroyed during either world war, enabling you to experience an array of traditional architectural movements. When I first visited in 2019, this unique architectural heritage changed my understanding of design and how to get students to better engage with architectural and design history, a class that is akin to “art in the dark” when taught in a traditional classroom experience.

With Appalachian State’s core mission of focusing on experiential learning, we set out to supplement our curriculum with a recurring study abroad experience. We developed a program that would emphasize experiential learning, connecting the goals of the university. The program allows us to bring students to a new environment where they can learn foundational histories, build upon traditional skills, and experiment with modern ideas through collaborations with companies like Adidas.

Connecting to Existing Curriculum

My colleagues and I are fortunate to work at a school that encourages study abroad at all levels of the educational experience. Our program in the Czech Republic allows students, from first-years to seniors, to continue to build on the skills they have learned in the classroom while also getting the immersive and cultural benefits of a

traditional study abroad program. Students get to know the neighborhood, people, and customs of the local area because we use Prague as a home base for the entire trip.

The course spans six weeks during our university’s summer session. Students have the opportunity to apply the study abroad credit toward the nine-credit section of Design History or the 18-credit section of Design Electives within our existing curriculum, depending on where they are in the program and which credits they need to fulfill. Regardless of which path students choose, everyone in the program receives six credits (two courses) to apply toward their degree. While we offer flexibility with credit choices, the classroom experience is the same for everyone.

The benefits of overseas opportunities far outweigh the challenges of teaching design without a studio and fabrication space because there is an emphasis on experiential learning. Through the Prague study abroad program, we expand how and where design education is taught, learned, and applied. The geography and natural environment of Boone, NC, are a fantastic inspiration and testing ground for developing new and innovative outdoor gear, but not ideal for sharing the extensive architectural history of the world or current trends within the design industry.

With the pandemic mostly behind us in early 2022, students, as evidenced by the registrations, were eager to participate in this new experience to learn about architectural movements firsthand and develop new technical and social

Left: Student-designed objects inspired by the style of a specific design movement experienced during their study abroad in Prague (clockwise from top left): Art Nouveau street lamp, Modern transportation, Art Deco chaise longue, Baroque water pitcher, Cubist salt and pepper shakers, Art Deco deck chair, Post-Modern toaster, and Gothic Bluetooth speaker. Original work created using Procreate on Apple iPads.

skills that would better prepare them for the working world. From planes, trains, trams, and metros, in May–June 2022 we explored a new culture, environment, and functional objects in Prague and its surrounding cities. The conscious decision to study in Prague was rooted in the authentic architecture, moderate climate, and rich culture.

Our students are able to interact with the people and places around them. For example, we take students on field trips to see the Villa Tugendhat by Mies van der Rohe, a world-renowned porcelain design studio, various design shops, and even the Czech Bee Research Institute. These interactions provide students with no shortage of opportunities to see the past, present, and future physical world. Every item we come in contact with each day provides a chance to analyze ergonomics, material properties, and aesthetics. In other words, our work is all around us.

While our students work diligently to research, ideate, prototype, and finalize their concepts in each of their regular on-campus studios, our faculty is constantly telling them to “get off the mountain.” We want to ensure that our students are not secluded from current design exhibitions, practices, and people because, unlike many other design schools located in major cities, we are considered a rural institution. The Prague summer abroad trip is one of many excursions where our students can network with professional designers. The program also aligns with the university and department’s goal to develop course collaborations through sponsored studios and design competitions.

New Technologies in Old-World Spaces

When developing the program, we knew we needed to be mobile while teaching design abroad. Daily walking tours meant the need for lightweight devices to help students document the many learning opportunities, and digital drawing has been an industry standard for some time now. Therefore, we adopted the iPad, which is ideal for travel.

To keep experiential learning at the forefront, students are taught Procreate sketching on the iPad. In these exercises, students start with the basics as if they are learning with a pen on paper. They learn to draw straight lines, proper motion and posture, perspective, and even line weights. These skills are emphasized in a way in which the use of the iPad becomes another tool in the designer toolbox.

For each of the assignments, we provide history

and background on each architectural movement in the classroom before heading out for a walking tour. During the tour, we stop at several examples of each design movement and discuss the features, details, and specific timing of the movement. The movements in Prague are intertwined with each other where gothic buildings are next to cubist that are next to modern. This natural blending emphasizes the varied attributes of each style.

With each walking tour, design details become clearer as the repetition of the architectural movements helps solidify this learning for the students. As a way of enhancing the learning outcomes for the design history section of the class, students illustrate a new consumer product to showcase the details of each architectural movement. By building upon these course learning styles of memorization and hands-on learning, the students gain a greater understanding of each movement.

Collaborating and Culture

This year’s study abroad experience culminated in a collaborative project with Adidas. For their final project, students were asked to develop the next Adidas Samba, a classic sneaker that is design- and purpose-driven.

Through several rounds of ideation and feedback, students built concepts that ranged from technologydriven to sustainably manufactured. Each student outlined their concept and purpose by connecting their focus to a specific user. Mood boards and sneaker references were outlined as they began the process. By using the new digital drawing skills they learned in Procreate, they were able to design anywhere from a park to a train. After weekly reviews from the Adidas team, each student provided a final presentation that captured their design with industrystandard visuals: a perspective rendering and flat pattern tech pack. The perspective rendering showcased the colorway and materials. The flat pattern tech pack illustrated the manufacturing of the upper and tooling of the sole.

As this was an immersive six-week course abroad, students were also surrounded by and engaged in global opportunities. We visited and learned from Czech designers and artists and visited and experienced firsthand historically and culturally significant spaces. The experiences in Prague were supported and strengthened by excursions to Brno, Mikulov, Cesky Krumlov, and Kutna Hora. On these extended trips, students toured the Sedlec Ossuary “Bone

Church,” Cesky Krumlov Castle, and the Mikulov Chateau. Instead of bringing guest speakers into our classrooms, we saw these speakers in their actual environments. Students were able to witness artists’ in-depth design process in a way that cannot be replicated in our traditional classroom environments.

Bringing it Home

Our program is successful not only because of what we can do outside the traditional classroom but also because of the relationship we built with the university’s office for international education. Our program also works closely with our in-country provider to ensure that the students are safe and that their educational needs are met.

In building a study abroad program, it’s important to consider what resources your university already has and how they can fit within your current curricula. Our study abroad trip to Prague is ideal for students who want to stay on track with their on-campus programs of study. It also allows them to travel with their peers and professors, providing a sense of familiarity for students who might not be as comfortable traveling abroad alone. However, our university also offers semester-long exchange programs with international design schools.

Regardless of what type of program you’re planning, creating a well-timed itinerary is probably the most essential. Over the years, we have built relationships with vendors,

designers, and local companies that look forward to our return each summer. This familiarity allows us to negotiate fees much earlier and thus keep the cost to the student reasonable each year. It is also useful to connect with your alumni who may work or have traveled to the areas you wish to explore. They can provide additional tips about the local culture, and if they currently live in the region, this is another opportunity for the enrolled students to build their design network.

Industrial design is about designing for others. Whether it’s to solve a problem or to provide distraction, our products are successful if they accomplish this goal. By observing architectural movements throughout history, interacting with a new culture, and bringing their life experiences to the table, our students are able to identify a user and develop interesting concepts for each design project. Furthermore, their personal growth during the trip and interaction with the Adidas design has set the students up for future success.

—Michael Rall, IDSA m.rall@yahoo.com

Michael Rall is an associate professor of industrial design and assistant chairperson in the Department of Applied Design at Appalachian State University.

Students and faculty discuss design and the process of slip casting with world-renowned porcelain artist Daniel Pirsc in his studio in Mikulov, Czech Republic. The study abroad trip visits Mikulov each year for The Artistic Design Festival where innovative Czech design is around each corner.

CHANGING DIRECTION

MAKING A CASE FOR A DESIGN-FOCUSED FOUNDATION YEAR

Industrial designers must continuously adapt their practice to the built environment’s complex and constantly evolving circumstances. Ken Friedman, the chair professor of design innovation studies at Tongji University, has stated how “the rate of change and the nature of change in other fields inevitably affect design. This, in turn, affects how designers must think.” Many of today’s issues did not exist a decade ago. It is accurate to assume that the demands of designers will be very different in 10 years. How can design educators best prepare design students now to answer the call for change in the future?

Many design educators agree that having a solid foundation is pivotal to a student’s success. In creative degrees, introductory skill-building courses are cemented in an undergraduate student’s first year of study and are often labeled “foundation year,” or something to that effect. Upon completion, students then apply for their desired degree program and undergo a review based on specific criteria set by the respective departments. Depending on the degree awarded and the type of institution, the impact of this first year on an industrial design student’s success can vary. Ultimately, once within a degree program, the curriculum narrows to that field, but having a solid starting point from which to build can significantly impact the rate of advancement.

Many research institutions award undergraduate industrial design degrees as a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) or a Bachelor of Design (BDes).* Each type has benefits and barriers. At the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), we transitioned from the former to the latter in fall 2013, coinciding with the formation of an independent School of Design. This article describes what we learned along the way.

BFA vs. BDES

In BFA programs, potential design students mix with those pursuing creative-studies degrees. First-year curricula often cover topics and skills that benefit students regardless of their intended area of study. The advantage of this approach is its breadth of teaching and learning across creative disciplines and the possibility of recruiting additional design undergraduates from undeclared art students. Faculty in traditional fine-arts foundation programs often span disciplines from studio arts to design, exposing undergraduates to various perspectives on creative making and thinking.

However, as we found in our own experiences with a BFA, when students enter the industrial design program, faculty must rapidly catch them up on design-focused skills and strategies before introducing specific themes and frameworks. Our early studios had become so focused on building hard skills that there was little time to nurture the soft skills necessary to thrive in later courses. Because of this, we delayed or removed specific advanced topics altogether, which could have better prepared students for the expansive and evolving field of practice. Nonetheless, many graduates of our BFA went on to successful design careers. However, we found that some were not adequately ready for design’s complex and fluid forms of practice. This was largely due to too much emphasis on the product, not the project; we needed students to stop asking “What?” and ask “Why?”

Alternatively, in BDes programs, the foundation year cohort comprises those solely pursuing design. Introductory curricula include a breadth of applications and techniques

* We acknowledge that some institutions award alternatively named degrees outside these two (e.g., BS, BID, etc.) that closely align with the BFA or BDes. Feel free to draw your own comparisons.

relative to the field taught that represent the various aspects of design practices. The advantage of this approach is that the faculty can better prepare budding designers for new and emerging forms of practice. With a design-focused foundation year, the BDes program can highlight the interconnectedness of practice across the spectrum of design disciplines from the start. Plus, the foundation year balances the hard and soft skills needed for a firm footing when beginning any design program.

Initially, we were concerned that admission into a design-centric school would eliminate the ability for students to find their way to design or similarly affect opportunities to sway undeclared art students. Surprisingly, the number of applicants did not change, and the submitted quality of work throughout the foundation year increased. We saw that students who chose the field from the onset were now more prepared for their specific designdegree coursework.

Our Approach

At UIC, our design-centric foundation year is a precursor to four distinct degree programs: the BDes in Industrial Design, the BDes in Graphic Design, the BA in Design Studies, and the BS in Computer Science and Design. Regardless of their future degree choice, all students must complete the required foundation studios (six for the BDes, four for the BA, and two for the BS). All classes cover skills and topics that apply to future degree studies, allowing students to explore the disciplinary spectrum of design. By focusing on an equal balance of hard and soft skills, classes can successfully respond to the ever-changing design world without additional burden.

Outlined below are the courses offered, describing their inherent ability to adapt to future demands:

Design Colloquium: This seminar provides an overview of design theory and application through the lens of our school’s diverse faculty. The course covers a broad range of contexts and possibilities for design practice. Lectures challenge students’ understanding of the field and draw associations between works of design from

various backgrounds and disciplines. Students develop a vocabulary around our design’s broad yet interconnected disciplines.

2D Form Studio: This studio introduces the fundamentals and application of graphic composition (symbols, images, and letterforms), emphasizing observation, process, hierarchy, and abstraction. Projects explore iterative, abstract form-making methods, building skills that guide and inform future visual design decisions. Students develop a vocabulary of things seen rather than spoken.

3D Form Studio: This studio introduces threedimensional composition and the basics of form through iterative making and experimentation. Projects explore visualization techniques of dimensional primitive shapes through exploratory mock-ups using simple materials, fabrication tools, and modeling techniques. Students develop a vocabulary around the three-dimensional form, focusing on objects rather than products.

Color Theory: This studio introduces color aesthetics and systems with an emphasis on the definition, replication, and interaction of color across various design media. Projects range from iterative formal studies to applied outputs, where students recognize, describe, define, and replicate colors in a holistic approach. Students develop a vocabulary centered on color-related concepts, conditions, emotions, and narratives.

Design Drawing: This studio introduces the fundamentals of design visualization to capture form and proportion through sketching. Projects focus on rapid conceptualization skills, iterative form development, analog rendering, and compositional sketch techniques. Students develop a vocabulary centered around the semantics of form, interaction, and value.

Design Photography: This studio introduces photography used in design studies. Critical visual skills are developed through the decisive practice of observing form and content during the image-making process. Students examine verbal and written language, exercising restraint to build meaning and editing with purpose.

Digital Media Design: This studio introduces the basics of design theory and processes in digital media. Students use current technologies to explore the basics of motion graphics and interaction design, experimenting with analog and digital techniques to generate and manipulate pixelbased imagery. Students develop a vocabulary that bridges the gap between timeless and emerging platforms.

Each course is agile in delivery and application, always maintaining a broad design perspective. As new technologies and ideologies arise, faculty can easily incorporate them into the courses. This inherent flexibility and focus on balancing hard and soft skills will prepare first-year students for any design application

At the end of the foundation year, students showcase their portfolio of work to apply for one of the four-degree programs. Through semi-structured interviews, students use their newly acquired vocabulary and skills to exhibit craft, composition, context, and curiosity in their work and discourse, all traits our faculty deem necessary for success. In this review, the faculty can see firsthand the fruits of the foundation year’s rigorous focus on developing hard and soft skills.

Outcomes

Students accepted into the BDes Industrial Design program are better prepared to face the growing complexity of projects, from the practical to the theoretical. In their final year, students engage in two year-long capstone courses. In their senior thesis, students examine overlooked forms of practice through self-driven research and development. Faculty-guided project development includes exposure to discursive and experimental processes. In their Professional Practice Studio selective, students work on interdisciplinary teams (generally including business, engineering, and medical faculty and students) with external partners from the industry.

The quality of the students’ capstone work illustrates their readiness to tackle advanced topics affecting today’s society. In their personal and team-based experiences, students encounter contemporary issues such as the circular economy, entrepreneurial product development, and design

for social impact. Strengthened by a rich design vocabulary, our students have a broader perspective of the design field and an enhanced appreciation for collaborators and the roles stakeholders play at different stages of a complex project.

As young design professionals in the field, UIC design students are well-versed in multiple facets of design application. They possess a diverse skill set, are prepared to tackle a broad range of problems, and wear many hats in an ever-changing built environment. This can lead to rapid advancement and significant professional recognition.

Conclusion

At the University of Illinois Chicago School of Design, we found that at the beginning of a student’s academic career detaching degree titles from the application of design and focusing on design-specific skills and methodologies (and less on individual expression of creative arts) can help develop strong designers who are better able to adapt to change.

Adapting to a complex and continuously evolving environment may seem burdensome for designers. But designers must understand that society’s rapid rate of change impacts our design ability. As society evolves, designers must proactively approach the resulting problems and opportunities. At the UIC School of Design, our foundation year is set up to embrace this change. As you consider a possible migration from the BFA to the BDes at your institution, take time to acknowledge the evolution of our field and what aspects of your program could benefit from becoming more rigorous, fluid, and adaptable.

—Kimberlee Wilkens, IDSA, and Michael Seskauskas harteliu@uic.edu; mseska2@uic.edu

Kimberlee Wilkens is an assistant professor of industrial design and director of undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Design. Michael Seskauskas, a seasoned design professional, received his UIC BFA in 2011 and is now a visiting instructor of industrial design and a coordinator of the foundation year.

CHANGING DIRECTION

CREATING BUSINESS-READY DESIGNERS

The Iovine and Young Academy at the University of Southern California (USC) was conceived by the legendary music and tech icons Jimmy Iovine and Andre (Dr. Dre) Young. When Iovine and Dre were running Beats, they would frequently look to hire young talent who had recently graduated, but they found that while the candidates were exceptionally knowledgeable in their particular major (design, engineering, business, communications, etc.), they typically had very little understanding of the other facets that go into running a successful product company. As hard as they tried, they were not able to find an institution that was teaching students a holistic view of what it takes to successfully run one of these businesses. Even as I look back at my own college experience, I had no doubt graduated with the ability to design great products, but I was lacking the know-how to be a successful entrepreneur.

Solving the Right Problem

The Academy is a unique learning environment. It utilizes a cohort model where students from different backgrounds and skill sets are carefully selected and curated to complement each other and much of the learning comes from collaborative team-based projects. We have found that the type of student attracted to the Academy typically has a strong level of acumen in one or more of the pillars by which the school was founded, as well as strong interests in the other areas we teach outside their wheelhouse. One of the more common statements we hear from applicants when asked why the Academy interests them is, “I found a school where I don’t have to focus on just one thing and give up something I love!” At the end of the day, the most important attribute we look for in students is an ability to creatively problem-solve and think outside the box.

One of the foundations we teach at the Academy is challenge-based learning and how implementing humancentered design principles is essential to validating assumptions and solving problems worthy of being solved. I was brought into the Academy after its fourth year to develop classes around physical consumer product design, as this was an area students had expressed interest in. With my background as an industrial designer as well as a serial entrepreneur, I learned through many mistakes about the challenges that come with developing consumer-product businesses. Because of this, I was able to help develop product design classes that focus on not only how to create desirable and feasible product solutions but also, more specifically, how to assess the viability of a product by asking:

• Who is the target customer?

• How large and opportunistic is the market?

• What is the problem?

• What are the customer pain points and unmet needs?

• Is this a blue-ocean opportunity within a competitive landscape?

• Is this a problem worth solving?

The practice of human-centered design essentially allows us, the designers, to take much of the guessing out of the equation and validate whether or not our assumptions are correct. What this means is that we shouldn’t be designing a product for a specific customer but rather with a customer, meaning that we must involve the customer throughout the entire process of developing a solution. These are some lessons I learned early on and, frankly, throughout much of my career. I would come up with what both I and the client thought were cool and innovative concepts, and the trigger to invest in manufacturing would get pulled without the

concepts being tested with actual users, only to find we had focused on solving the wrong problems.

In the Academy, students are encouraged to first analyze markets and gain user insights by directly engaging with target customers to understand where the opportunity lies. Students are then guided to create a range of loose concepts and quick low-fidelity prototypes that they can test with users. This is an iterative process, where students continue prototyping, getting feedback, iterating, and increasing the level of fidelity to the point where there is enough confidence to move forward to create a minimum viable product.

Preparing for the Future

The role of the industrial designer has changed dramatically from the time I graduated from ArtCenter in 1995, and I feel it is going to continue to change radically in the coming years. When I graduated, product companies relied on industrial designers and product design consultancies to create beautiful artifacts. The art of styling has become somewhat commoditized, however. Factories manufacturing these types of products have become more and more competitive and, as such, have evolved to offer compelling design

solutions to clients as a free in-house service to attract business. This is only going to become more compounded with the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are at a place where the role of a traditional industrial designer will quite literally be able to be done by a computer. This leaves us with students studying to become industrial designers who won’t need to learn the more skill-based techniques that designers like me did back in the day. Rather, they will need to think more like product managers and understand the strategies that go behind the decisions they make. This doesn’t mean they won’t need to be artists, as I believe we are not yet at a place we can teach computers to have taste, but the tools by which they will be designing solutions will change dramatically. We need to teach industrial design students how to be a blend of an artist, technician, and business administrator.

—Grant Delgatty, IDSA g.delgatty@gmail.com

Grant Delgatty is an industrial designer, serial entrepreneur, intellectual property expert witness, and associate professor of product innovation at the USC Iovine and Young Academy.

Iovine and Young Hall is a 40,000-square-foot state-of-the-art learning facility designed to support the Academy's integrated curriculum. (Photo courtesy of the USC Iovine and Young Academy)

CHANGING DIRECTION

LET PLAY ARISE: BRINGING JOY, CHEER, AND SPONTANEITY TO THE CLASSROOM

It was not that long ago that I was a full-time student. Walking into design school, I remember being fascinated by the products of design that were on display: beautiful photographs and shiny renders on course catalogs and delicately hand-painted models of power tools carefully locked away in cabinets down the hall. The world of design was elegant and aspirational, something that people with great self-expression, confidence, and even greater dexterity do. Beauty and utility were conceived, seemingly, out of thin air, then admired from a distance.

It doesn’t take long—as any student of industrial design knows—to be hit in the gut with a hard reality check. To be a maker in this world requires you to rub shoulders with cold, hard machines. There is no place for clumsiness or gentle fingers. From the horror of realizing the hours of practice it takes to perfect a skill to making sense of the million different subjects that make up design, for a student, the fear of never being good enough is very real. The weight of the perfect sketch, the perfect render, and the beautiful model hangs heavily in the way of joyful exploration. And for some students, including the student that I was and still am, this weight can be paralyzing.

When the time came for me to design courses and studios, crafting a pedagogy that addresses these fears was central. How can we create a learning environment that’s truly reflective of the iterative nature of human-centered design? How can we encourage students to sketch and make freely and joyfully? How can we break away from the idolization of finished products on a pedestal and instead focus on experimentation and exploration? How can we evolve from the rigidity and stigma surrounding industrial

ways of making if we are indeed to create more communal, more inclusive, more gentle ways of living?

Play as an Antithesis

Something magical happened during my final semester of graduate school. I was buried deep in my project, trying to create a pack of toys for social-emotional learning in preschoolers. On my worktable were a few loose prototypes of toys: a few magnets, parts made of clay, and repurposed wheels from an old train set. As my classmate Tony approached my table to converse with me, he mindlessly picked a few parts and started fiddling with them. While his conscious mind chatted away with me, his hands and his subconscious mind were deep in play with the toy parts in a way that I had not imagined before. I observed his play in awe. It was over in a few moments, but his play had given me new insights into my design. In a moment of joyful spontaneity, he had tested and critiqued my work. It was then that I realized there is something magical about play. Could play change the way we engage with physical forms and reshape how we give and receive feedback? I wanted to learn more.

As I dug deeper into play, I noticed its prevalence in language far beyond what we generally think of as play. We play the piano, when in fact what we actually do is strike the keys. We also play in bands and act in plays. I learned that there are people whose life’s work is to study play. Historian Johan Huizinga describes play as “a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly.” Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of the

This studio poster reminds us to play and use our hands.

National Institute of Play, calls play a primal activity that is “preconscious and preverbal” and that we have engaged in play well before the evolution of our consciousness and our ability to speak. Maybe it is this deep link to our shared evolution that allows play to transcend the boundaries of culture, geography, time, and even animal species. Think of how we connect to our pets through play!

Throughout childhood, play is the mechanism through which we gradually learn how the physical world works and the mind space where we test social interactions. Remember how we tumbled with our siblings or spent quiet afternoons playing pirates in our pillow fort? Isn’t this the same imaginative exploration of the physical, the social, and now the digital world that we do as industrial designers? Therefore, shouldn’t joy and play be central to the way we encourage exploration and break away from fear and stigma in our classrooms?

I’m hardly the first person to talk about leveraging play for design and innovation. Yet, in this post-pandemic climate-change-fighting world of ours, I suggest that we see play in our classrooms in a new light. Can play be the antithesis of expectations, deadlines, and unhealthy perfectionism? Can playful environments fully absorb us into that state of joy where creativity flourishes? Can design critiques turn into play dates where we engage with each other’s work in a state of play?

Materials and Tools for Play

There is much to learn about play from designers who create for play and education. My own teacher was Cas Holman, creator of the famed Rigamajig, an open-ended kid-size construction kit. In her episode of Netflix’s Abstract series, she refuses to design how one might play with her creations, opting instead to “create circumstances for play to arise.” Can we, as design educators, adopt a similar mindset and create circumstances for play to arise in our classrooms? During my time at The Design School at

Arizona State University, I introduced a few simple methods and tools to create such conditions. Read on as I describe how we’ve incorporated play into the classroom and the studio using what we know about the properties of play to enhance learning.

The act of play is deeply connected to using our body to explore materials, space, and physical forces. Some materials capture the spontaneity and what Brown calls the “improvisational potential” of play better than others. Instead of the rigid foam core, cutting blades, and sandpaper that typically live in industrial design classrooms, we flooded ours with colored pencils, thick markers, multicolored craft paper, salvaged cardboard, and, most importantly, mounds of PlayDoh, materials you’d typically find in kindergarten. The central goal of these materials is to help students catch an idea in the moment and give it physical form with the swiftness and dexterity of a four-year-old. Ideas captured this way are also far more editable, affording playful addition and subtraction at will. As a result, we can rapidly combine unexpected elements together and make accidental discoveries of new forms, mechanisms, compositions, and ways of solving the problem at hand. Culturally imposed locks of must and should give way to the joyous possibilities of the what-ifs.

Furthermore, the gentleness and softness of these materials allows anyone, regardless of their skill with shop tools, to give physical form to their ideas. This proved a respite for students, especially in the context of having lost shop access for nearly a year. Naturally, it was also a great way to engage non-design students taking design subjects. When creating the Human Factors in Design curriculum, a subject taken by a vast number of non-design majors, we incorporated playful making and reflecting in groups as a fundamental learning tool. Here the focus is on prototyping the interaction instead of the form. Concepts such as affordances and signifiers become a bit more palatable when you’re simply having fun—or experiencing “inherent attraction,” as Brown calls it—with your groupmates exploring a TV remote with no keypad.

Playing with Peers

Thinking about social play—playing with others—takes me back to my own culture. In the month of April in Sri Lanka,

PlayDoh models of a TV remote made by human-factors students.

amid the golden yellow haze of harvested rice fields, joyous and, at times, utterly ridiculous kinds of play for adults erupt. Imagine people clad in colorful dresses and sarongs trying to climb a grease-covered pole or having pillow fights while balancing on a narrow seat. Imagine the battle with gravity as onlookers cheer each side. At the end, imagine all that fatigue being washed away by healthy doses of coconutty food and drink. In this scene, the play is communal. It is competitive, yes. But not for competition’s own sake. Similarly, shouldn’t peer reviews, reviews by instructors, and overall studio culture center community, joy, and encouragement? Shouldn’t we cheer each other on?

As students piled back into in-person modes of teaching following the remote learning required by the pandemic, we noticed that some were struggling to engage with peers and instructors. We were still donning masks for everyone’s safety, which also made social-emotional engagement within studio classrooms that much harder. To address this problem, we devised a play date, a few hours of studio where students would visit each other’s spaces and

engage playfully with whatever kinds of prototypes they had made. The central play theme of the day was what Brown calls “apparent purposelessness.” Students were not given specific instructions; we simply invited them to display their projects in any format they liked and encouraged their peers to walk around the classroom space and engage with the projects. And yes, there was a table of assorted cookies!

With no particular rules to follow, nor expectations of ways to be, students went around asking questions, touching prototypes, and joyfully interacting with each other. There were a group of blindfolded students trying out fishing rod grips in one corner and another group clicking through smart-watch prototypes. Those who were tackling a digital product had devised games where their peers could interact with paper interfaces. Asynchronous kinds of play, where peers would simply interact with an object and leave comments on sticky notes, were invented by yet others. There was laughter, PlayDoh stuck everywhere, and a few broken models. Everyone, including faculty, felt a bit lighter at the end of it. Play had become a unifying force, instantly understood by our diverse community and willingly engaged in.

To conclude, I must stress that to play is not to diminish the seriousness of design or how our ideas must work in the real world of shop drawings, factory floors, and stress tests. But I believe that if we are to create environments where students feel positive and grow confident in their abilities, we must be willing to take play seriously. There can be no growth and no healing for us or the planet if we do not pay more attention to what it means to live and learn joyfully. Amid never-ending pressures to do more and be more productive, let us pause and give our students and ourselves permission to play.

—Nipuni Siyambalapitiya, I/IDSA nipunisiyamb@gmail.com

Nipuni Siyambalapitiya, a former instructor of industrial design at The Design School, Arizona State University, works as an independent design researcher traveling between the Bay Area and her native Colombo, Sri Lanka.

A blindfolded student uses a fishing rod prototype.

The current higher-education design landscape lacks consideration for accessible design studio space designed to meet the needs of marginalized, firstgeneration, and low-income students. These students often face significant challenges in pursuing higher education, and they can benefit significantly from having access to studio space specifically designed to meet their needs.

To build a more equitable education system for the future, educators, design professionals, and administrators must shift their focus from serving privileged groups to supporting individuals who are regarded as being from marginalized groups. In this article, I will discuss how the Art+Media+Design department at East Stroudsburg University witnessed the challenges these students face and how that pushed us to adapt our strategies to provide more accessible creative design studio space where diverse, talented students can flourish.

Financial Challenges

One day in 2021 while looking at Instagram on my couch, I discovered the Cost of Industrial Design survey. It put out an urgent call for educators to support students, be accommodating to those who need financial support, and be creative in providing a more equitable design space. Some of the facts mentioned in the survey captured my attention, such as that while 56% of respondents reported having access to free materials from their university, 97% still had to purchase materials. Also, the two primary ways students afford these supplies are financial help from family and by working outside of school. More than half of the respondents said that finances were a reason they couldn’t complete projects to their best ability, and the resulting lower quality of their projects had them worried that their grades would not meet their expectations. These statistics indicate that students’ financial challenges cannot be ignored and that solving this problem will have a positive impact on the quality of their work and thus encourage them to continue their ID education.

I quickly realized that the same concerns are mirrored in my ID class. Also, as the student advisor, I witnessed more and more design students facing financial problems or having difficulty continuing their studies, particularly minority and low-income students. My current university is a commuter public university. Compared with R1 and R2 institutions, my institution has more under-represented minorities and people from low-income groups. Among the

952 first-year students in the fall 2020 cohort, 45.6% were under-represented minorities, and 29.5% self-identified as the first generation in their family to attend college. Both rates have increased for 2021 and 2022.

I started looking at more evidence and found the same topics covered in the 2021 IDSA Member Survey in which 56 out of 121 students admitted that one of their top concerns is being able to continue their education. Although many reasons can cause students to leave college without receiving a degree, the financial issue cannot be ignored, and the pandemic and rising inflation have made this situation even worse.

The amount of time and effort students can spend on their studies has decreased since 2020, according to the 2022 National Survey of Student Engagement. The survey reported that first-year students from East Stroudsburg University spend on average only 12.5 hours each week on schoolwork outside the classroom—compared to 14 hours in 2019—and those registered for 15 credits spend 11.5 hours a week in class. These stats indicate that first-years spend only 23 hours each week on their schoolwork. Many students have to take care of their families while attending college or have to work to pay their tuition, housing, and food. These demands make it difficult for them to keep up with their schedule, and therefore, they are unable to focus as much time on their schoolwork.

After realizing the financial challenges students face and how they, especially marginalized groups, are negatively impacted by them, I realized that I needed to do something to support our students. We needed to be mindful, adjust our studio space, make project materials more affordable, and accommodate flexible schedules for individuals who need extra help outside class. Then more questions came to mind: How do I balance my workload to help all the students outside of class? I started spending more time with individuals in the studio, I provided materials for students, and I let them borrow laptops from the studios, among other efforts.

However, these ad hoc solutions were not feasible in the long term. We needed solutions that are financially sustainable and strategic. We started to be strategic with the budget, considering financial constraints, maximizing the use of space and the facilities, making adjustments to accommodate students’ varying schedules, and supporting students more effectively.

Opposite: A student’s side project (left) in the design studio, and students working on research (right).

Surmounting Budget Cuts

The pandemic and declining enrollment forced public universities and colleges to cut budgets and eliminate positions. That created more challenges and, in turn, put more responsibilities on the faculty. How could we deliver high-quality design education within those constraints? We sat down with department chairs, academic administrators, and community friends, and as optimistic problem-solvers, we brainstormed solutions formally and casually. After that, we realized that all the adjustments and approaches have a focal point: studio space.

A design studio is a place where creativity grows and flourishes. It encourages creative collaboration, group revisions, and open dialogue between faculty and students. Extracurricular activities and sparks also happen a lot in the studio. We wanted to keep the studio running and maximize its use for our students. We tried different approaches to adapting our studios by creating affordable class projects, recycling and reusing supplies, being mindful, being accommodating with the schedule, and hiring student assistants.

One of our first challenges was the limited budget for class supplies. As a public school system, before the pandemic, our institution provided a budget to purchase supplies for design studio classes. I used to purchase supplies for laser-cut projects, such as wood, acrylic, and corrugated board. Because of the budget crisis, I started to purchase materials that could be used for multiple semesters and recycled at the end of each term. Instead of purchasing expensive and delicate materials, we use more cardboard, cardstock, and foam core. My chair and I used our individual grants to pay for high-quality material for students who wanted to use wood or acrylic for their final production. Here are other approaches that helped us work with the limited budget:

• Share facilities with other departments such as theater, mathematics, and physics.

• Accept donations from local art organizations, recent alumni, retired colleagues, students’ parents, and local entrepreneurs.

• Replace expensive industrial software such as SolidWorks KeyShot with educational-free software such as Onshape, Fusion 360, Blender, and Tinkercad.

• Raise funds through student side projects, such

as offering 3D printing and laser-cutting services to university clubs, local small businesses, and faculty.

New Studio Management

Another challenge was the lack of studio management and technicians, positions that were eliminated by the budget cuts and, as a result, increased faculty responsibilities. In addition to teaching, creative scholarship, research, and enrollment activities, faculty became the only ones responsible for managing the studio, including purchasing proposals, shop safety, training, maintenance, and workshop coordination. Heavy teaching duties make it difficult for faculty to devote much time to studio management, especially on weekends and during the summer. However, as educators, we are willing to support students’ in-class and personal projects and see them succeed! We needed solutions that would help balance the faculty’s overloaded duties, oversee shop liabilities, financially benefit students, and maximize the space and facility use.

In fall 2021, we hired several student studio assistants to monitor the facility and safety. Their responsibilities include:

• Performing general computer maintenance on the lab laptops, including installing software, updating licenses, and signing-out laptops to students.

• Enforcing lab safety rules during open hours.

• Coordinating the summer camps and workshops happening in the labs.

• Assisting in producing digital fabrications in 3D printers and laser-cut machines for both curriculum projects and community projects.

These initiatives were successful both financially and academically and for both the faculty and students. Since fall 2021, we have hired more than 10 students as studio assistants, and we have extended these efforts to other studios, such as the 3D printing lab, ceramics studio, and costume shop.

While hiring student workers is not a new model, we had to figure out how to efficiently work with students in a hybrid and flexible way. For instance, residential students have more flexibility to work as monitors and can work longer shifts in the studios, whereas commuter students are better able to work with faculty remotely to help us process digital files on their laptops, submit facility proposals, and

troubleshoot problems. For example, one of my studio assistants developed expertise in 3D printing, and his research on how to keep the filament dry really helped us. The experience he gained by helping other students in the studio also gave him insight into the most-used tools. He tracked the tools most in demand, and we added them to the supply list for future purchases. Based on his research, this year we purchased blades, pipe cutters, extension power cords, and Dremels.

The experience another studio assistant gained from working with 3D-printed files helped her find a job at a 3D-printing startup company. Overall, the new studio management arrangement has produced a positive learning experience among faculty and students. We hope to train more studio assistants and keep optimizing the current hiring and training process.

Toward Equitable Design Education

Our efforts and solutions to make design studios more accessible have helped students academically and financially,

especially those from marginalized groups. Not only have students benefited but so have other parties, such as the faculty, administrators, and communities. Undoubtedly, more work needs to be done in the future. I hope this article will encourage continuing discussions, generate strategic proposals, and inspire collaborationsamong educators, administrators, nonprofit organizations, students, and design professionals toward a more equitable design education and professional workspace.

—Xue Dong, I/IDSA xdong@esu.edu

Xue Dong is an assistant professor in the Art+Media+Design department at East Stroudsburg University focused on product design and 3D Design. She also has wide-ranging professional experience, including two patents.

A studio assistant demonstrates safety rules to students.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: INSPIRING STUDENTS TO BE BIG THINKERS

As I pondered what to write for this article, I paused to ask, What do I need to share with my colleagues, those who, like me, have chosen to devote a lifetime to teaching and designing and those who are new to this exciting profession? Whether you are a seasoned educator or a novice, my advice comes from more than 35 years of classroom observation and as a practitioner of design thinking. Along that journey, one of the keenest observations I have made is how much of a missed opportunity we pass up on the first day of class. This day is the most critical moment you will ever have to set the stage to inspire—truly inspire—young minds to think big.

And by big, I don’t just mean thinking differently. I mean thinking with reckless abandonment and with purpose. I’d like to share a few tips on how to encourage students to go for the gusto on that first day of class and how to inspire them to believe with full conviction in the madness of the process. The key you’ll discover is that the very first moments you spend with them are vital to setting the tone for embarking on a big-thinking pathway. First, you must see yourself as a producer, set designer, acting coach, and director. Think Steven Spielberg goes to Stanford d.school! I must stress that how you perform in this very moment will prove vital to your ability to nurture a big-thinking environment.

Step 1: Storytelling

It begins in the first few minutes of the class when introductions are made and vivid stories are told. This is when students share where they are from, what they are majoring in, and what prompted them to study this course. More importantly, they get an opportunity to say what interests them the most about design.

While enlightening them about the value of storytelling in the design-thinking process, you should imbue this moment with tons of passion for the subject and encourage your students to do the same. Ask them to not just repeat their story but also feel it, sense it, and taste it. Inform them that you’d like them to deliver their story with full emotion. If you are teaching a virtual course, insist that students tell their story on camera. Ask them to speak from the heart and minimize the importance of exact memory retention. Suggest that they feel their past—not remember it. Encourage them to act out poignant moments, and always project from the perspective of the glass is half full.

Lastly, accentuate the positive. If you remind your students of the importance of these practices, the next time they are telling their story, they’ll do it with more vigor and confidence, two key ingredients to fostering a bigthinking posture.

Step 2: The Expedition Outfitter

It is paramount to provide students with a roadmap to prepare them to be stewards of design thinking who provide innovative answers to everyday problems and possess the creative confidence to attain goals. Instilling these attributes is a daunting task for anyone and one that should not be taken lightly. Know that your students will hang on to your every word. As director and set designer, it is incumbent upon you to seize these first few moments and assure them they are about to embark on a successful life-fulfilling journey. And it is your responsibility to ensure that they have the right setting and tools to begin that journey.

This setting is referred to as the expedition outfitter, as explained in Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall’s artifactual

softcover The Universal Traveler. It is here where the roadmap is handed to the students, the flashlight is charged, and the directions and words of wisdom are imparted. I like to tell the students that they are about to experience a behavior change and a shift in mindset.

I then present the tried-and-true fable about dealing with change. I describe the four characters from Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese? I advise them that if they are going to succeed in this space, they should not be a Hem or a Haw, but should aspire to be both Sniff and Scurry and how both have what Francesca Gino refers to as “rebel talent” in her book of the same name. Yes, in that very moment, provide your students with the assurance that they are rebels eager to take charge and change the world. Then inform them that it is critical to demonstrate the creative confidence to explore and embrace new challenges—just as Sniff and Scurry do.

Lastly, I have each student take a Creative Confidence Barometer Quotient test with a chart of 15 qualities, many of which are discussed in Dave Kelly’s Creative Confidence . Each student is asked to rank themselves to determine when they know they have creative confidence. They assign a numeric value to each attribute and are asked to safeguard their numbers and reevaluate at the end of the semester.

Lastly, the students review and critique “Why Not Us,” a special episode of the PBS documentary Roadtrip Nation, which aired in 2015. The show follows four first-generation college students as they travel across the United States to interview successful leaders who were also the first in their families to receive a college degree. Seeing my students listen to the advice AT&T President Randall Stephenson shares—“In all that you do, do it in excellence”—is priceless!

Your students will likely connect with one of these four students and become more attuned to the value of empathy.

Step

3: The Many Hats of a Big Thinker

It is equally important for you to set the stage for this newfound world that these students will live in by explaining the many roles they are likely to play while embarking on the journey to becoming big thinkers. Design is not purely visual, and although one of the more recognized roles is that of the visualizer, the role of the facilitator is equally important.

Then there is the role of the inspirator, the role of the artist, the role of the researcher, and the role of the maker, those who are good with their hands. Establish early on that the designthinking steward will often be required to play each of these roles to varying degrees, particularly in a collaborative group setting, which is akin to ensemble acting and where design thinking reigns. Whatever the role, promote each as important and encourage students, as Stephenson does, to take on all roles in excellence.

Step 4: The Brain and Synectics

By the time you have encouraged the students to be like rats in the Johnson book and convinced them they can overcome obstacles, move mountains, and leap tall buildings with their creative-thinking abilities, you have probably instilled fear in half of them. This is perfectly fine. Without fear, you fail to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the brain, its left side, because it is wired, plain and simple, to protect you. Explain this to your students.

The brain’s key role is to protect you from touching a sharp edge and from running into a wall of fire. More subtlety, it is wired to keep you from embarrassing yourself,

Inset: Shot lists are especially critical for managing and preparing for film scenes. Try doodling your shot list to get you through that all important first day of class.

EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM

August 23-25, 2023 New York City, NY

Call For Abstracts & Content Proposals

Call for proposals to the 2023 IDSA Education Symposium, a trans-disciplinary design research and education event focused on the advancement of design. Our theme this year is ‘The Watering Hole’ a gathering place for our community to reflect on the current state of design and to engage in collective dialog to shape the future of design. The idea of design frequently ignites a heated debate: while the methods, knowledge, application, and adoption of design continues to expand, fundamental questions about the nature of design still remain, and the legitimacy of the field and our professional identity are continuously called into question.

We invite all those interested in design (the study, the practice, the discipline) to submit proposals for leading this important conversation. Well executed research is welcome and encouraged, but we’re also interested in nascent ideas – works in progress that can benefit from real-time discussion, interactive experiences, or hands-on research.

Submission portal closes January 25, 2023.

exposing your weaknesses, exploiting your ignorance, and shaming and ridiculing. At this moment, tell them that these are self-induced traumas that fester due to our pride. Admonish them to put their pride aside while embarking on this journey. What is equally important is to let your students know that the design thinker and the big thinker must use two other critical faculties when solving big problems, the right side of the brain, which is your heart and gut.

I then recommend you share the time-proven method for guaranteed thinking outside the box: synectics. I explain five specific techniques that are proven and engaging, such as 10,000 ideas in as little as 10 minutes, a process by which attributes are randomly matched and crossedmatched to form new ideas. Analogous analysis, garbage dump, manipulative verbs, and opposites attract are several other idea-generating techniques used in the classroom. While introducing your students to synectics, tell them that synectics is like Google Maps on steroids. The key is to assure them that it is OK to dismiss logic and rely on the randomness of attributes, that is, the forcing together of seemingly disparate things, and to bring that fresh viewpoint back to their problem-solving.

Take One

If I have not yet convinced you to dust off your old tape of John Belushi’s Blues Brothers and take in that unforgettable cameo of Steven Spielberg at the county clerk’s office, ponder this remarkable statistic: Some studies suggest that humans forget approximately 50% of new information within an hour of learning it. That number goes up to an average of 70% within 24 hours. Therefore, if you want the added assurance of leaving your students with an indelible impression throughout their exciting journey, try some of these measures on the first day of class.

Lastly, as your semester counts down and the next one ensues, you might even consider fabricating a clapboard, fashioning some Cecil B. DeMille flared hip breeches, purchasing a director’s cap, and mocking up a director’s chair in time to confidently shout “Take one!” on that allimportant beginning of the semester—Day 1.

Do this and I guarantee you your first day of class will never be the same.

—James Howard jhoward8532@gmail.com

James Howard is the executive director of the Black Inventors Hall of Fame, a design professor, historian, and owner of Entrepreneurial U., which applies design thinking to help adults discover new career paths.

Students assign a numeric value to each confidence attribute on day one. They are then encouraged to reassess the values at the end of the semester.

Sangyu Xi, IDSA | University of Cincinnati

PROVIDING A BENEFICIAL EXPERIENCE

For Sangyu Xi, IDSA, sketching is more than just a part of her process as a designer. “Growing up as a restless kid,” she says, “drawing was the only thing that could calm me down. I enjoy it so much that it has become a part of me, allowing me to record all kinds of ideas, emotions, and fantasies.”

She learned about industrial design from a friend, who described it in a way in which Xi could picture herself using her creativity to help people who are underprivileged and make a positive difference in the world. “I was completely sold,” Xi says. “Later, after visiting MoMA in New York, which inspired me greatly at the time, I decided to study industrial design.”

Her award-winning design of the Airy scoliosis brace for teenagers, which can be adjusted to the wearer’s body as they grow, is proof of her remarkable talent and mission to help others. “When I design, I think about a philosophy rather than an aesthetic,” she says. “I always look for simplicity, pragmatism, emotional value, and a caring user experience during the process.”

The most difficult part of her ID studies, she says, was finding where she fits in what has traditionally been a male-dominated profession and where critique can be subjective and harsh at times. Finding a support system was important.

“During my time at college, IDSA fostered a close community of young designers while also providing a platform for prominent designers to share their perspectives and advocate for change,” Xi says. “That means a lot to me, because I see more and more doors opening for new designers from minority backgrounds like me.”

Currently, Xi works at Bould Design and continues to develop Airy. “Consulting is an excellent place to try new things, make mistakes, and learn about one’s own limitations,” she says. “In 10 years, I see myself working in a consulting firm for a few years before returning to school to pursue another degree in the engineering field. I’ve always known that I want to create a product that will benefit society, so starting a business is also on my agenda.”

Right: The Airy scoliosis brace was designed to be adaptable to the wearer’s body as they grow, designed by Sangyu Xi, IDSA.

Liandyartha, IDSA | University of Illinois Chicago

GIVING BACK TO PEOPLE AND PLANET

Phoebe Liandyartha, IDSA, enjoyed art and science in her early school days and would do design projects on the side. However, she didn’t learn about industrial design until her first year of college. “Initially I was going for graphic design,” she says, “but then I got exposed to the processes of ID from the design foundation program at UIC. I rediscovered my passion for design for problem-solving, and that’s when I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in ID.”

While in school, she saw there was a strong community for industrial designers through IDSA and decided in her sophomore year that she wanted to be part of the organization. “Being an IDSA member has helped me to expand my knowledge of ID through the various designers that practice ID in different fields,” she says. “I got connected with a lot of great people in IDSA, and they inspire me to thrive and be ambitious as a designer.”

Liandyartha’s winning design projects include Ayak, a cooking-oil filtration system, and Pawk, a pet transportation system for Jeep. Her design solutions are research-driven

and sustainability-focused as she believes her role as a designer is to be responsible—not only to the people for whom she’s designing but also to the environment in which the product will live.

“I hope to create products that are both thoughtful of its users and the environment,” she says. “I want to use design as a tool to curate products that help people practice environmental consciousness. Ultimately, I want to use design to help people in need, to help those who interact with products or systems that are not yet thoughtfully designed, especially in developing countries such as my home, Indonesia.”

Liandyartha is now an industrial designer at SO Dsgn, a design consulting firm based in Chicago. As for what’s next, she says, “I see myself accumulating experiences in both my design values as I continue to hone them. I also see myself being active in giving back to the community, perhaps creating a nonprofit to expand design education in Indonesia. I’m excited to see where I will be in the future.”

Phoebe

Right: The Carbon Crop carbon-facts label for food products helps consumers build awareness about the impact their food choices have on the environment, designed by Phoebe Liandyartha, IDSA.

Sophia Tseng, IDSA | Rhode Island School of Design

EMBRACING THE PROCESS

Sophia Tseng, IDSA, describes herself as “crafty” from an early age. Her ID studies began at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, where she first learned about design thinking, and continued at Rhode Island School of Design. Drawn to the blend of creativity and practicality in industrial design, Tseng also found a supportive community in IDSA.”

“The wide network of designers and the spread of things that everyone pursues is such an inspiration,” she says. “It has also been a reminder for myself of the endless possibilities design holds.”

Tseng’s range of design projects includes the Swing Stool, an inviting furniture piece inspired by swinging legs, and Homebody, a home workout guidance system to ensure proper posture and form.

“I would say thinking is as important as doing in my design process,” Tseng says. “I have learned that design isn’t a linear journey and it’s important to pause, reflect, and recalibrate from time to time throughout the process.”

Her advice to current ID students: “embrace ambiguity,” a concept she learned while interning at IDEO Shanghai. “I haven’t mastered this yet either,” she notes, “but I believe it opens up more possibilities when you spend time swimming in ambiguity and exploring, instead of speeding up to find an answer.”

Tseng also has learned that while it can be easy to gather information and feedback, it is more difficult to comb through and make judgments about which pieces of information are salient and which are less relevant. “What I’ve found helpful,” she says, “is to not just listen to the voices of others but form your own opinions.”

Today, Tseng works as an industrial designer at Garmin and wants to continue bringing ease and pleasure to people through the products she designs. “Just like how my 2021 self wouldn’t have expected to be at Garmin or to receive a Student Merit Award,” she says, “I’d like to always welcome surprises. But I hope in 10 years I will have found my place in the ID space.”

Right: The Homebody workout guidance system helps people maintain proper posture and form when working out at home, designed by Sophia Tseng, IDSA.

David Edquilang, IDSA | University of Houston

CREATING BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS

David Edquilang, IDSA, has always been creative. As a child, he wanted to be an artist. At 13, he built his own computer and designed his own 3D printer. He studied engineering in high school and college, but that path wasn’t meant to be. “Industrial design turned out to be exactly what I was hoping for in a profession, so I made the switch,” he says. “I wanted to help people with my talent and skills, and when I found out about ID, it was the perfect outlet for me.”

Edquilang leverages his studies in both the engineering and medical fields for designs such as OX, a semiautonomous delivery vehicle, and Knack, a personalized and affordable prosthetic arm that won IDEA 2022 Bronze in the Student category.

“Winning the Student Merit Award and an IDEA this year has definitely been life-changing,” he says. “The recognition and honor have boosted my confidence in my capabilities as a designer and have filled me with a great sense of motivation to keep performing at an exceptional level and to always raise the bar for myself.”

Although he found sketching in the ID style to be challenging, Edquilang also learned through the design

process the areas in which he excels: testing, research, CAD modeling, and prototyping. His advice for students: “Commit to your education. If you want to be a decent designer, you’re going to have to put in a lot of work. Skill does not come without experience and experience does not come without practice. Do not hesitate to experiment with your workflow. Immerse yourself in everything that the field of design has to offer.”

Edquilang is set to graduate from the University of Houston in December 2022; currently, he is working on a redesigned successor to the prosthetic arm.

“What I hope to accomplish through ID is what brought me into ID in the first place; I just want to help people,” Edquilang says. “I believe that ID is not about creating beautiful objects; rather, it’s about creating beautiful moments. Beautiful moments happen when people help each other, and design is a universal tool that can be used to help people with any problem. To see a design come to reality and serve as a functional solution to a person’s problems is possibly one of the most gratifying things in life.”

Right, from the top: Knack is an affordable, personalizable prosthetic arm achievable through 3D printing, and the OX semi-autonomous vehicle makes lastmile deliveries efficient, designed by David Edquilang, IDSA.

Kelsey

Leppek, IDSA | Western Washington

University

BRINGING A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE

Kelsey Leppek, IDSA, first thought she’d be a carpenter, then a dollhouse creator, and then an architect. Through her teens and early 20s, she developed a passion for 3D fine arts and threw herself into metalworking, sculpture, and pottery. She studied ceramics and worked as a potter but found herself wanting to make things she couldn’t realistically achieve in clay, such as furniture and light fixtures.

“This sparked a curiosity about design that was validated by touring a nearby industrial design program,” she says. “The second I saw the workspaces and the designs other students were completing, I was hooked.”

At Western Washington University and through internships, Leppek honed her craft, working on design projects such as the Garmin Varia Headlamp and Tempo, a neuro-headband for music therapy. She also got involved with IDSA, tapping into a larger creative community. “Between online events during COVID, Discord channels I found through IDSA events, and the recent IDSA conference, it’s meant a great deal to me to connect with other designers beyond my university or workplace,” she says.

Leppek describes her design process as “very physical” as she spends a lot of time in 3D, both analog and digital. “While I do sketch throughout the entire process,” she notes, “3D is where I feel the most comfortable and where things really start clicking.” And while she doesn’t believe designers should have a personal aesthetic, “because design and aesthetic decisions are so heavily dependent on the client or end user,” she appreciates when the aesthetics of an object “feel resolved, intentional, and in service of the object’s purpose and story.”

Currently, Leppek lives in San Francisco and works at Astro Studios. She hopes to continue improving human experiences, interactions, and impacts through design with an open mind as to where her career might lead her.

Leppek encourages ID students today to identify the designers they admire and find ways to work for and alongside them, whether through mentorships, internships, jobs, or work-study programs. At the same time, “make sure you’re bringing your own perspective to the table and not merely echoing the ideas of other designers,” she says. “Don’t forget that your voice is a contribution to the design space.”

Right: The Pacer convertible running vest was designed to accommodate the different needs of trail runners, designed by Kelsey Leppek, IDSA.

HARNESSING CREATIVITY TO BENEFIT OTHERS

Hanyu Zhu, IDSA, loved drawing as a kid. He would sketch everything from landscapes to tiny toys. This interest led him to industrial design, which he first studied as an undergraduate student at the East China University of Science and Technology.

“I really like industrial design,” Zhu says. “I hope I can get experience in different companies related to design projects—and I’ll start a design studio of my own.”

In 2019, he joined the industrial design graduate program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. His innate curiosity propelled him to work on projects that could benefit people around the world. As a result, he gained many opportunities and a diversity of knowledge from different fields. He also found that connecting with and learning from members of IDSA while in school made him a better designer.

“IDSA has helped me several times when I was looking for help and with some advice to improve my portfolio, which inspires me,” he says. “I had two career fairs in school, and I received meaningful advice from them both times.”

Zhu’s design projects span from MOOBUS, a modular coach bus design, to Kaaboard, a sustainable delivery package system. He’s also worked on the designs for a food delivery system, a dog toy, and a portable refrigerator. Currently, he is most interested in augmented limbs and futuristic vehicles, both of which, in his opinion, have great potential in the near future.

Zhu is now working in Shanghai and looking for new opportunities in tech, whether they be domestic or abroad. To ID students today, he stresses the importance of always picking up new skills, especially in sketching and modeling. “If you have any chance,” he advises, “keep learning.”

Hanyu Zhu, IDSA | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

Right, from the top: The Kaaboard sustainable delivery package system eliminates the need to secure the box with tape, and the Moobus provides customizable seating with modular components, designed by Hanyu Zhu, IDSA.

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Ann Dinh, IDSA | Rhode Island School of

Design EXPLORING ALL POSSIBILITIES

Ann Dinh, IDSA, was born and raised in a suburb outside of Philadelphia. “I had a typical suburban American childhood with some Vietnamese elements sprinkled in—school dances, football games, hanging out at the mall—with special trips to the Asian grocery store, Lunar New Year celebrations (Tết), and Vietnamese language classes,” she recalls.

One of her fondest childhood memories was making a replica NASA Apollo rocket with her father. “I can vividly picture our days spent sitting in an open garage, squatting on the ground, gluing all the pieces together,” she says. “The rocket was made with whatever we had on hand: leftover cardstock, electrical tape, and markers. We made trips to the local library, checking out reference books to get the details and proportions just right. This childhood activity seems trivial, but looking back, I can say it was the start of my design education.”

When she started applying to graduate school, Dinh first looked at architecture programs, but during the search, she discovered industrial design and was excited by the breadth of work in the field. “I am extremely happy with my decision,” she says, which extends to her involvement with IDSA at RISD.

“IDSA has allowed me to connect with other industry professionals and educators I would not have met otherwise—to other women designers and educators—and to connect with other recent industrial design graduates from different parts of the country,” she says. “These connections have provided me with opportunities along with insights I did not gain during school.”

Her varied ID work ties back to her interest in NASA as a child, with Artemis Apparel, designed for astronauts, and Astronosh, a regenerative food system for the Earth and beyond.

Currently, Dinh is an adjunct professor while pursuing freelance work. Over the next decade, “I want to have a full-time faculty position at a university,” she says, “while simultaneously leading a design practice or design research lab. I want to incubate and create impactful designs. I also hope to obtain a doctoral degree.”

To design students, Dinh suggests they take advantage of everything their school has to offer now. “Explore as much as you can,” she says. “Allow yourself to fail and embrace the failures. You learn from your mistakes as much as you learn from your successes. You have to at least try it to know.”

Right, from the top: The Dâm Dà set of nesting bowls, serving dishes, and measuring tools celebrates and promotes traditional cooking methods, and the Astronosh regenerative food system for astronauts transforms insects into delicious and nutritious meals and snacks, designed by Ann Dinh, IDSA.

Maggie Jarrett, IDSA | North Carolina State University

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

Maggie Jarrett, IDSA, has always been interested in the arts and enjoys both creativity and variety in her work. “I was drawn to industrial design because it was a way to use my creativity to solve various problems,” she says.

In school, she appreciated how there was always something new to learn with each ID project and every project was different from the one before. “While this was definitely a challenge,” she notes, “it also kept the coursework interesting because you never knew what solution you would ultimately design and what skills you would need to learn in order to arrive there.”

Her work is wide-ranging, from portable luggage for wheelchair users to a better mask for people who wear glasses to Pivot, a multi-platform gaming controller. “I think my aesthetic is ever-evolving,” she says, “but at the moment, I would describe it as modern and minimal” She also believes that the best and most sustainable solutions are often the simplest.

Today, Jarrett works as a product designer at WillowTree, a digital software development agency. Ten

years from now, she hopes “to be able to look back on a portfolio of designs and products that had a positive impact on the people who used them and look forward to continuing my design journey for many more years.”

The main piece of advice she gives to new designers is: Don’t fear failure. “For me personally,” Jarrett notes, “there are many aspects of my past designs that I would change if I did them now; but each failure is really a step toward improvement and necessary in order to become a better designer. Feedback and criticism should be seen as positive because design is about understanding perspectives other than your own.”

For Jarrett, ID at its core is about designing products that improve a user’s experience or solve a problem, and being an industrial designer is being a voice for the user. “Through design,” she says, “I hope to create solutions that could potentially improve people’s quality of life, even if it is just in small ways.”

Right: The Wheelable navigation app helps people with physical disabilities safely and efficiently arrive at their designation, avoiding obstructions along the way, designed by Maggie Jarrett, IDSA.

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Deshui Yu, IDSA | University of Oregon

RETURNING TO NATURE

Deshui Yu, IDSA, has been into design since his early teens. “When I was in junior high school,” he says, “I first saw some Nike sport watch design sketches by designer Carl Liu, IDSA, in our art textbook, and I was instantly fascinated by this applied art that combines aesthetics and pragmatism.” He went on to study industrial design at the undergraduate and graduate levels, coming to the United States from China just over a year ago.

Currently, Yu is finishing his master’s degree in the Sports Product Design program at the University of Oregon and plans to start his career in footwear design and the wearable product design industry.

Yu’s design work includes Neon, a reflective and breathable night running shoe, and Switch, footwear that can transform from cleats into a trail running shoe for downhill mountain bikers.

His strengths are sketching and brainstorming in the ideation stage, though he admits that making choices

between concepts and pushing the process to the final solution has proved more challenging. And while he has always used the common double-diamond design model to locate and solve problems, Yu is also interested in fields like speculative design that bring a new thinking dimension to the regular design process.

“My design principle is committed to shaping a symbiotic relationship between people and products,” he notes. “I hope that products can be organically integrated into users’ perceptions, cultural context, and usage scenarios so that they can function in an unconscious state.”

Over the next decade, Yu wants to become a senior footwear designer and create resource-sharing footwear designer communities in China with his friends. “Through industrial design,” he says, “I want to make wearable products to become the interface and link between people and the world through which we can read nature, experience nature, and return to nature.”

Right, from the top: The Neon reflective and breathable running shoes keep runners safe at night, and Switch transforms from cleats into a trail-running shoe for downhill mountain biking, designed by Deshui Yu, IDSA.

SMA FINALISTS

Ava Hansen, S/IDSA Richmond Institute of Design & Innovation at Western Michigan University

Ava Hansen is a recent graduate of Western Michigan University’s Product Design program. Growing up, she was always finding new ways to make things. Whether it was origami, jewelry making, leatherworking, or knitting, she was constantly acquiring new fabrication methods. She chose industrial design because it allows her to use her critical-thinking skills in tandem with her creative skills. Hansen currently works at Stryker Medical.

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Allison Krish, S/IDSA The Ohio State University

Allison Krish is a designer from Minneapolis, MN. Her interests lie in the design of interactive spaces, as well as sports and outdoor equipment. She is passionate about exploring how design can be used to encourage play and interaction as she believes these things have a major impact on a person’s overall health and well-being.

Harrison Landis, S/IDSA Columbus College of Art & Design

Harrison Landis is an industrial design student at the Columbus College of Art & Design. He loves creating and ideating products that will improve the lifestyle of the consumer. From the products that fill people’s homes to the shoes they wear on their feet, he loves designing products that will enhance someone’s mood.

Yuanqing Li, S/IDSA Cleveland Institute of Art

Yuanqing Li is an industrial designer with an emphasis in graphic design, graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Art in May 2022. She is passionate about creating simple products that are aesthetic, functional, and long-lasting. Li believes that simplicity can make the product intuitive and sustainable. She always considers the whole life cycle of a product, including from the material selection to the next life cycle. Her goal is to help people live their life better and influence them to contribute to sustainable development.

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SMA FINALISTS

Mahiro Sano, S/IDSA International Center for Creativity in conjunction with Cedarville University

Mahiro Sano is an industrial design student passionate about human-centric problem-solving. She was born in Japan and, at the age of seven, moved to Slovakia. Being surrounded by multiple cultures at a young age showed her that everyone has a unique story to tell, each with their own background and values. Her curiosity and passion for people drive her design process. In her designs, she strives to craft an experience that speaks to the user’s heart by understanding their core needs.

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Taylor Spencer, S/IDSA College for Creative Studies

Taylor Spencer is an industrial designer. She was raised in southeastern Michigan by a writer and a teacher, which she believes was the perfect balance between the creative and the logical that she needed growing up. Spencer fell in love with product design at the College for Creative Studies and discovered many of the passions she has today, including sustainability, inclusivity, and medical design. During her undergraduate degree, she was tasked with projects that address single-use plastics, problem-solving, storytelling, and designing to better the lives of people.

Emily Spooner, S/IDSA Carnegie Mellon University

Emily Spooner is a graduating senior at Carnegie Mellon University studying product design with a minor in psychology. Originally from a small town in New Hampshire, she is interested in using design as a tool to improve quality of life across age and demographics and working across digital and physical mediums with the user at the center. Her studies in psychology form the foundation of her design practice, focusing on first understanding people in order to properly design for them.

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Maxwell Chan, S/IDSA Unviersity of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign

Maxwell Chan is an industrial designer completing their BFA in industrial design at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Working with human-centered design and design-thinking practices, Chan’s philosophy is to create beautiful and intuitive experiences that span multiple disciplines to serve real needs and create an impact on people’s lives.

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SMA FINALISTS

Riley Crotteau, S/IDSA University of Wisconsin–Stout

Riley Crotteau is a graduating student of the industrial design department at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. He was a scholarly varsity athlete on the football team at Stout as well. He is driven by the desire to make this world a better place for everyone and firmly believes that industrial design is the way to accomplish it. This career has opened up so many possibilities for him, and he is eager to see what the future of design will look like and what his role will be.

MIDWEST

MIDWEST

Emilie Gavillet, S/IDSA University of Kansas

Upcycling soft-goods products brought Emilie Gavillet into industrial design and has become the foundation of who they are as a designer, creator, and artist. Following their passions while staying true to their values and virtues has allowed Emilie to push boundaries, break norms, find opportunities, and create meaning. Following graduation from KU, Gavillet will be pursuing a master’s degree in apparel design and merchandising at Colorado State University, where they’ll also be able to use their two remaining years of eligibility to play soccer.

Alexander Keoh, S/IDSA Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Alexander Keoh is a senior industrial design student at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. After learning about how industrial design blends problem-solving with creativity, Keoh knew he had found his niche. The thought of taking an idea in your head, regardless of how abstract it may be, and bringing it to fruition has always fascinated him. Using the skills and knowledge gained through his studies, he hopes to further explore diverse topics and create solutions that can make a positive impact on people’s lives.

Skyler Koetter, S/IDSA Purdue University

Nothing excites Skyler Koetter more than innovation and sharing that collaborative experience with others. Using ingenuity to push the limits of what something can be has always been one of his innate abilities. He is the product of his family’s hard work, their support, and his unwillingness to settle for nothing less than his best.

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SMA FINALISTS

Abigail O’Connor, S/IDSA Kansas State University

Abby O’Connor is a fifth-year graduate student in interior architecture and product design at Kansas State University. She loves showing her personality through her designs by highlighting the small details, offering a pop of color like her personality, and creating clean and straightforward designs. O’Connor takes time to go over every detail to present the best work possible. She is interested in furniture design and how furniture plays a role in the interior environment.

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Sophie Schroth, S/IDSA University of Notre Dame

Sophie Schroth is a product designer from Seattle, currently finishing her BFA in industrial design at the University of Notre Dame. She believes in the power of design to bring joy to everyday experiences. To her, design is an intersection of understanding people, conveying information, and providing new experiences: a balance of challenging and creating. She has experience across all stages of the design process but focuses specifically on design research and discovery to bring products back to the user.

Jerritt Smith, S/IDSA University of Minnesota

Jerritt Smith is a product design student at the University of Minnesota. He is an ambitious problem-finder, problem-solver, artist, and multidisciplinarian as his curiosities and hobbies are seemingly boundless. While growing as a designer, Smith developed a passion for discovering the ways he can implement human factors and human-centered design principles to create meaningful experiences within products. After graduation, he plans to launch his career in the medical devices industry.

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Sophia Wilker, S/IDSA Iowa State University

Sophia Wilker is graduating senior from Iowa State University with a Bachelor of Industrial Design and a minor in sustainability. At Iowa State, Wilker was actively involved as the vice president of the school’s IDSA student chapter, the president of The Green Umbrella sustainability club, and the director of membership selection for the Tri Delta sorority. She is a creative designer with a passion for sustainability and product design.

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NORTHEAST

SMA FINALISTS

Vasavi Aggarwal, S/IDSA Drexel University

Vasavi Aggarwal is a multidisciplinary designer in pursuit of envisioning a beautiful, equitable, and compassionate world through collective efforts as a design community. Aggarwal treats the world as an enchanting playground that is home to her intuitive exploration. As a graduate of Drexel University, she hopes to continue to get her creative juices flowing in the professional world and meet exciting communities of creatives who are pushing boundaries across several industries with thought-provoking vigor. Nothing gets her as excited as travel stories, food experiments, and existential conversations over coffee.

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NORTHEAST

Alec DeNapoli, S/IDSA Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Alec DeNapoli is an industrial designer with a background in mechanical engineering. His interdisciplinary journey has shaped the way he approaches identifying, understanding, and solving problems, always trying to consider various perspectives throughout the process. What excites him the most within design is utilizing his human-centered design skills to solve UX/UI design challenges, as well as generating compelling 3D product visualizations.

Rachael Hannah, S/IDSA Thomas Jefferson University

Rachael Hannah graduated in May 2022 with a BS in industrial design with a double concentration in lighting design and soft goods design. She is currently living in Philadelphia, where she bartends and is looking for new opportunities to start her career.

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Joshua Harris, S/IDSA Kean University

Joshua Harris is a senior industrial design student with a hard baseline belief that creating intuitive interactions and experiences is the main end goal. He believes that with his work ethic and creative mindset he can contribute to the successful fabrication of products.

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SMA FINALISTS

Aron Lee, S/IDSA Pratt Institute

Aron Lee is an industrial designer based in Brooklyn, NY. For most of his life, he has been drawn to the act of creating useable objects to benefit the lives of those around him. Lee finds the possibility of improving the world through thoughtful design to be the primary driving force on his journey as a designer and as a human being. He is a sociable and hands-on individual who finds enjoyment in the collaborative aspects of design, whether it is working with colleagues, team members, or clients.

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Sean Martin-Hamburger, S/IDSA Parsons School of Design | The New School

Sean Martin-Hamburger is curious and responsive to the emotional and meaningful impact of a product on a user. He strives to bolster users’ well-being through focused attention on interpreting cultural norms, redefining usage, and altering materiality to shape a product’s impact. As a result of living and working on three continents, he brings an appreciation that diversity not only delivers better solutions but surprising ones as well. He has learned to quickly adapt to and produce within new environments while working with clients from start-ups to global brands.

Jack McDowall, S/IDSA Rochester Institute of Technology

Jack McDowall has built his design experiences on strategic thinking and user connection. In action, this has guided his process when working alongside individuals in a variety of fields, both personally and professionally. In doing so, he attempts to target unspoken and even stigmatized issues to enact social and emotional change through his work.

NORTHEAST

Tadiwanashe Mujaya, S/IDSA University of Bridgeport

Tadiwanashe Mujaya (“But if you don’t want to butcher that, feel free to call me Prince”) is animated, enigmatic, and expressive. These are some of his defining characteristics, and he has tried to channel these in all that he does, including design. His approach to design is similar to storytelling. The design process itself is a story, and so too is the interaction between design and the consumer. He is driven to write a compelling story that is pulled from insights and resonates with the readers.

NORTHEAST

SMA FINALISTS

Jorgie Pashalian, S/IDSA Wentworth Institute of Technology

Jorgie Pashalian is currently in Wentworth Institute of Technology’s undergraduate program for industrial design. What drove her to become a designer was her curiosity and appreciation for art and science. Her father is a contractor, and her mother is the best creative she knows. With their combined perspectives, she’s grown up to love design. In the past four years at Wentworth, she also has had the opportunity to represent her school playing women’s lacrosse.

NORTHEAST

NORTHEAST

Joseph Sherwood,

Syracuse University

S/IDSA

Joe Sherwood is an undergraduate student at Syracuse University studying industrial and interaction design. His career in design is as much about learning design principles as it is learning about the way the world works. He has a strong drive to understand the inner workings of what makes products and experiences engaging, innovative, and beneficial. He hopes to make a change in the world through his knowledge of design and ability to educate others through his work.

Sophia De Lurgio, S/IDSA Georgia Institute of Technology

Sophia De Lurgio is an industrial designer and user researcher who is also studying applied languages and intercultural studies at Georgia Tech. Connecting with people she would not otherwise get to talk to is one of her favorite parts of design, and it has been amplified by her Spanish-culture studies. At the end of the day, she looks forward to spending time outside, trying new restaurants, and creating art.

Danielle Fattibene, S/IDSA Virginia Tech

Danielle Fattibene is a senior studying industrial design at Virginia Tech. During her time at Virginia Tech, she has been able to gain hands-on experience with all things design, as well as a minor in engineering. As a designer, Fattibene is always looking to improve and elevate lives through design. She strives to be a problem-solving leader, doing her best to bring joy to all, especially to those often excluded from the design conversation. She is not afraid to try new things, explore uncharted territory, or take on awesome challenges.

SOUTH

SOUTH

SOUTH

Pablo Garza, S/IDSA NC State University

Pablo Garza is passionate, open-minded, and curious. He is originally from Mexico but grew up in the United States. Currently, he attends NC State University, where he studies industrial design, focusing on footwear design. Garza believes he brings a diverse, lighthearted approach to product innovation. He creates to express freedom and empower the next generation. It is his life’s purpose to help, inspire, and make a change.

Elizabeth Olchevski, S/IDSA James Madison University

Elizabeth (Lisa) Olchevski is an industrial designer, artist, and student at James Madison University. In other words, she is a creator of beautiful and useful objects as well as a professional storyteller, chitter-chatterer, and problem-finder. Her design philosophy is to create bridges. There are so many things in the world that might seem disparate, but it is possible to create solutions that bridge the gaps. Whether it is a small pond or a large ocean, Olchevski wants to identify the gap and create beautiful design solutions.

SOUTH

Meg Puett, S/IDSA Appalachian State University

Meg Puett is a graduate of industrial design and product design at Appalachian State University. She has a passion for the arts and a desire to see the world from new perspectives and uses these motivators for her life choices. She believes our lives are dominated, even defined, by the manufactured stuff that surrounds us. Herein, she sees an opportunity to improve the human experience through creative design that respects our appreciation for balance, beauty, and functional simplicity.

Natalie Schaake, S/IDSA Savannah College of Art & Design

Natalie Schaake is a versatile designer who believes in the value of having empathy for the user and understanding their experience at the base level. With context comes the ability to create great, functional, and aesthetic products that can last a lifetime. Beyond industrial design, she is skilled in graphics, leadership, soft goods, and more. She is always looking for a way to go above and beyond, and behind every project lies excitement, eagerness to learn, a positive attitude, a determined mindset, and an eye for detail.

SOUTH

SOUTH

SMA FINALISTS

SOUTH

Chris White, S/IDSA Auburn University

Christopher White is from New Orleans. He initially studied CNC machining at Southern Union State Community College. After working in the field for three years, he discovered industrial design. As a hands-on person, White quickly fell in love with the tactile, tangible nature of the problem-solving process of design. He studied industrial design at Auburn University where was able to work with organizations such as Amputee Blade Runners and Fillauer, LLC, designing what he’s passionate about: assistive technology. Along with many other things, he loves woodworking, video games, 3D printing, and electric bikes.

WEST

Kai Bannister, S/IDSA San Jose State University

As a child, Kai Bannister loved the excitement he got from drawing shoes and fixing his bike. Much to his surprise, this feeling is now something that he will be forever chasing. He found industrial design through the desire to be creative to solve problems.

Abbie Cheng, S/IDSA Arizona State University

Abbie Cheng is an undergraduate senior graduating with a BS in industrial design from the Herberger Institute for Design and Arts, and Barrett, The Honors College from Arizona State University. Her passions are the pet industry, environmental design, and spatial design. As she continues her journey, she strives to learn and utilize her skills in industrial design and her creative background to integrate innovative ideas and solutions that will change the world by design. She will also be exploring other aspects of the design industry and use every opportunity to learn, master, and ideate.

WEST

Derek Chiang, S/IDSA Otis College of Art and Design

Derek Chiang is a senior product design student at Otis College of Art and Design. His interest in product design began with prop design, where he finds it magical to manifest items from the virtual world into the real world. Product design is a unique field of study that allows him to transform conceptual ideas into tangible objects that embody his creative thinking. His philosophy is that if he can think it, he can make it.

WEST

SMA FINALISTS

Sean Jiaxing Guo, S/IDSA Art Center College of Design

Sean Jiaxing Guo is an interdisciplinary designer based in Los Angeles. His desire is to arouse questions, not just solve problems. He sees design as a vehicle for thinking and discovering, uncovering concepts that are the balance of creativity and logic. Blending his background in design and engineering, he considers complex perspectives to see the poetry of objects and the aura of their existence. He loves to create experiences that resonate with people, connect to their emotions, and reflect a sense of self, either digitally or physically.

WEST

S/IDSA University of Oregon

Gemti Loewenstein is a product design major from the University of Oregon. Her design is inspired by a strong arts and fibers background and a love of stories. Art and illustration have given her the ability to clearly share and visually organize her ideas as well as to create indepth storyboards. Loewenstein views every product she makes as a way to create shared experiences and narratives.

WEST

Gemti Loewenstein,

Karinne Rogers, S/IDSA Brigham Young University

Karinne Rogers is a recent graduate of Brigham Young University. During her time as a student, she discovered several of her passions in design: soft goods design, 3D modeling, consumer electronics, and exploring new textures. She is inspired by the work of Giorgia Lupi, Hella Jongerius, and Charles and Ray Eames. After completing school, she hopes to work as a soft goods designer.

WEST

Wilson Reavley, S/IDSA University of Washington

Wilson Reavley is an industrial designer from the Pacific Northwest studying at the University of Washington in Seattle. He loves kayaking, cycling, and the outdoors. He is passionate about blending industrial design with his adventures to create unique products and experiences.

WEST

SMA FINALISTS

James Shorter, S/IDSA San Francisco State University

James Shorter is an industrial design/product development major at SF State. One of his biggest influences is nature. He could spend all day outdoors simply observing and being as present as possible. After graduating, Shorter plans to build a career that he will never get tired of, one in which the term “burnout” does not exist. With his skills, he hopes to positively impact the world around him through design, imagination, and creativity.

WEST

Yannan Pan, S/IDSA Rochester Institute of Technology

Yannan Pan is a graduate of RIT with a strong interest in products, models, and design. Pan loves painting and handmaking and is proficient in a variety of design software, such as Fusion 360, Sketchbook, KeyShot, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Procreate. In terms of working style, Yannan focuses on the details and, at the same time, pays attention to the creativity of design and thinks about problems from different angles to find out unique design points.

Parker Wang, S/IDSA Pratt Institute

Xinda (Parker) Wang is an interdisciplinary designer based in Brooklyn, NY, and a Master of Industrial Design student at Pratt. At Pratt, he was awarded the Outstanding Merit, Rowena Reed Kostellow Student Award, and represented Pratt as an IDSA Graduate Student Merit Award Finalist. Wang holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in studio arts, where he dabbled in fields including creative coding, typography, printmaking, fashion, and designed objects. His works have been recognized by Pentawards, TDC awards, The Independent, Stylist, the Robb Report, Dieline, and Carryology Best Gears.

NORTHEAST

GSMA FINALISTS

Rachel Weisman, S/IDSA Parsons School of Design | The New School

Rachel Weisman’s background in jewelry design, passion for 3D printing, and desire to improve people’s lives through design inspired her to further her education and study industrial design. She’s always had a passion for making and figuring out how things work. When designing, she finds the most pleasure in creating playful objects and toys. She enjoys a challenge and any project that involves getting her hands dirty. She is a lifelong New Yorker and currently lives in Queens. She received her BFA in 2014 from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, majoring in metals, jewelry, CAD-CAM, and art history.

NORTHEAST

SOUTH

Zain Jamjoom, S/IDSA University of Houston

Zain Jamjoom is a multidisciplinary designer with an international design background working in user experience and visual communication in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Jamjoom is passionate about collaborative design as a solution to creating a more human-centered healthcare industry. She is excited to blend her education, ID skills, and background in creating new systems for design solutions.

Fangli Song, S/IDSA Georgia Institute of Technology

Fangli Song is a graduate student of industrial design at Georgia Tech. Song is proficient in product design, UI/UX design, visual design, and service design. He also is experienced in user research, design research, and human-computer interaction research. As a designer and researcher, Song seeks the opportunity to improve how we live and explore unknown possibilities.

Scott Drapeau, S/IDSA San Francisco State University

Scott Drapeau is a designer at the UCSF Makers Lab, guiding doctors and residents on how to make health- and science-related devices. Prior to design, Drapeau held a career in academia as an instructor in multimedia, online-learning-platform administration, and computer lab management. He earned a bachelor’s degree in multimedia production from Hampshire College and earned his master’s in design from San Francisco State University in May 2002. His goal is to apply what he learned at school and from his time abroad in Japan to design ideas around water use and the user experience in the bathroom.

SOUTH WEST

GSMA FINALISTS

Michael Peine, S/IDSA Arizona State University

Michael Peine’s mission is to create products that make people smile. As a child, he spent countless hours playing with Legos, making knight armor out of cardboard, and building forts out of furniture. He initially wanted to become a professional artist, but the starving artist stigma led him to pursue a business degree. It wasn’t until years after working in marketing that he stumbled upon the fascinating world of industrial design and decided to pursue a Master of Industrial Design degree at ASU. Peine is passionate about designing home products with playful functionality and artistic elegance that make daily life better

WEST

FINALISTS 2022 ACADEMIC JURY

Owen Foster, IDSA Aether Global Learning & UT Chattanooga

Elyse Larouere Coca-Cola

Jiabao Li, IDSA University of Texas at Austin & Peregrine Biosense

Carly Hagins, IDSA Western Michigan University

Başak Altan, IDSA Independent Design

Monica Tournoux, IDSA Proctor & Gamble

Hale Selek, IDSA University of Oregon

Betsy Barnhart, IDSA University of Kansas

Kristi Bartlett, IDSA Purdue University

Dr. Isabel Prochner, IDSA Syracuse University

John McCabe IBM

Elham Morshedzadeh, PhD, IDSA University of Houston

Mani Mina, IDSA Iowa State University

Aaron Abbott, IDSA GE Appliances

Thank you to these design practitioners and educators who volunteer their time to serve as judges of this year’s SMA, GSMA, and Education Papers programs. Each judge is responsible for reviewing a considerable amount of content in the process of making their scores and selections. Their dedication and commitment toward identifying and celebrating the next generation of design talent is an invaluable resource to our community. This group of judges includes all members of IDSA’s 2022–2023 Education Council and was led by IDSA’s Education Director, Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness of Iowa State University.

Vincent Lin, IDSA Macy’s

Josh Madwed, IDSA Sittercity

Marisa Lu, IDSA By that rainbow

Louise Mandredi, PhD, IDSA Syracuse University

Adam Feld, IDSA University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Benjamin Bush, IDSA Auburn University

Robynn Butler Belmont University

James Rudolph, IDSA University of Notre Dame

Kohar Scott, IDSA San Jose State University

Morgan Rudolph, IDSA Rudolph Design Studio

Aaron Scott, IDSA Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Danielle Begnaud, IDSA Bark & Pratt Institute

FINDING LOGIC: INDUSTRIAL FACILITY’S DESIGN LANGUAGE

In Part 4 of our series exploring design language, Brain Paschke, the health lead at Seed Studio within Google, spoke with Kim Colin, co-founder of Industrial Facility, a London-based studio (industrialfacility.co.uk). The two discussed the firm’s approach to blending form with the needs and ethos of contemporary life and to creating a design language that produces better things that help us live more fufilling lives.

In this four-part series, we aim to present a variety of perspectives from designers working in different creative sectors about their experiences in creating, maintaining, and using design languages. Editor’s note: The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Above: Kim Colin and Sam Hecht developed the Soft Fronda collection for Mattiazzi, Italy, by thinking about the context of new ways of working and specifically the way we might no longer own our seat in a shared workspace.

Brian Paschke: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat. Industrial Facility just turned 20 this year. Congrats! Looking back, can you tell us how it all began and the type of work you focus on?

Kim Colin: Sam Hecht and I founded our UK studio in 2002 as the result of many conversations about our respective disciplines: the fascination we have about how ideas are materialized and the way culture evaluates the form that ideas take. He has a master’s degree in industrial design, and mine is in architecture, so we are naturally curious about how objects and space work together to shape experience. We started Industrial Facility because we saw an opportunity to think about product design in a different way than most other studios at the time. For us, products and context should be considered together.

I can explain: When we started together in 2002, new digital modeling tools allowed designers to float forms in white space to create an object with no context, not even gravity. For instance, a cup is never going to exist unless it is in someone’s hand, on a table, in a room, or in a place. It has a context of use and an existence in a place, or even many places. On some level, it tells us about what cultural values bring it to life and hints at possibilities. The work we do across many industries (technology products and services, consumer goods, furniture, exhibitions, medical devices, etc.) reflects our ongoing conversations about how

we live with things, how things are made and distributed, how they are selected, and how long they last. As the world is rapidly changing, we have the chance to work on projects that foresee a problem or an opportunity in the future and to explore (and even take risks with) how they can be better for the long term.

Paschke: Some clients come to agencies for a unique perspective or approach to design, which is often recognized in the output of the studio either formally or philosophically. As a result, it can act as another layer of branding. Other agencies are like chameleons, almost becoming internal members of a team, a workforce extension taking on existing design languages. Where is Industrial Facility in this spectrum? Why?

Colin: This is a very good question. We are external designers, and we’re often hired for this exactly—our formal and philosophical point of view. When companies ask for an outside view on something, they’re looking at for the future. We want to understand the company, their research, and their ambitions. However, we are free to think beyond how they problematize and to connect dots to other areas of culture that they may not consider. I notice that some companies wear rose-colored glasses, meaning they foreground everything they do, not necessarily seeing a more holistic view. This is only natural for them, but not for

The OE1 Agile Wall by Kim Colin and Sam Hecht for Herman Miller, U.S. doesn’t appear mobile, but it is; its language is more about permanence than transience.

us. These companies might see a problem that they need to solve. Other companies don’t see problems but rather opportunity in a new area, technology, product, or service. We set up a branch of our studio called Future Facility (futurefacility.co.uk) so we could talk about projects that don’t necessarily end in production.

We decided very early on that we wouldn’t be a typical consultancy, which can be, as you describe, like another hand of the client. So far, our clients appreciate our ability to stretch them, and in fact, that’s why they want to work with us. Design can deliver more than the brief specifies, and we always try to overdeliver.

One example is when Novo Nordisk approached us to work on pharmaceutical devices. The company had worked with many specialist medical designers and wanted fresh eyes. They are the experts, and we, as novices, worked closely with their incredible engineers over many projects, one of which is Dialoq, their first smart insulin device, which was just released. We introduced a softer, inherently friendlier feeling to the handling and visual of the device without sacrificing Novo’s desire to maintain their proprietary signals for medical integrity. They have a developed and systematic brand language that has slowly evolved. They were interested in hearing how we could help them move toward a more understandable and simplified device in this new area.

Paschke: When you are working with a startup or new product categories, with perhaps no experience

working with designers, how do you help establish a vision for the 3D representation of the brand?

Colin: New product categories are very exciting, and we spend a lot of time locating what’s potentially familiar about the new in them. This is our way in. We make links between what already exists and what could exist. This bridge is carefully constructed and real, and it should be resonant. Eventually, form comes from the argument we make for what we see, and the more we work on it, the more it has to prove that what was once unfamiliar can become, in fact, very useful. I’ve already described how Sam comes from ID and I come from an architectural background; it’s helpful to characterize how something new can be relevant according to more than one discipline—in more than one dimension, you might say.

As far as having clients who have no experience working with designers, we have very few of those. When we started out, we decided we did not want the burden of convincing clients about the value of design, but rather preferred to work with clients who already understand and would judge the work for its merits, not its persuasion.

Paschke: Very clever! And what about well-established companies with a strong language recognition and understanding of the design process? What role do you play? What challenges or opportunities do you face?

Colin: Companies that have what we call a design legacy,

In developing the Run Tables Benches, Shelves and Accessories for Emeco, U.S., Kim Colin and Sam Hecht were inspired by how the idea of sharing is imbued in picnic tables and how multiple planks give a different signal from a single surface.

meaning that design is integral to what they have always done (and, therefore, they respect design beyond its marketing potential), have a deeper way of working with designers. They ask broader questions. Not just Can we fix this or make it better? but also How can we improve by doing this? And Who are we if we do this? And What are we saying? In other words, there is design in everything, and they are not afraid to ask a lot of questions of themselves.

When we are asked to respond to a brief from a company, of course, we answer it with a project. But we also give a much wider response, not just what they’ve specifically asked for but also work that contextualizes the project in the wider world, rather than only the company’s parameters. Because we have this skill, we have on occasion been asked to take on a design advisory role or a creative director role for such companies as Herman Miller, Muji, and Mattiazzi. These companies hold design close to their hearts, and serving them in this capacity has been an honor.

They do not have a form language as such; they have vision, they question themselves, and they aspire to do better. I don’t think any of them would say that the relationship between designer and company is a known, static one, but rather it’s an evolving, unfolding one. They embrace the journey because they know that ultimately it is profitable beyond the selling of objects or services. Design makes them better. Design makes what they do better.

Santa & Cole, in Barcelona, is one of those companies that has worked with designers on lighting since their

formation. Their founders are absolutely dedicated to design. In fact, in Spain, they are respected as cultural figures because they understand that the reward of doing good work is beyond commerce. It takes time. They feel a cultural responsibility that few companies embrace, and it makes what they do expansive and lasting. Respect!

Paschke: Excellent points. I love leveling up to the company’s vision. How do you approach documenting or guiding the work for internal teams? Brand books, rules, tools, a North Star vision?

Colin: Design languages are delicate, evolving things, not fixed rule books. For Herman Miller, we made an evolving set of principles for an un-system furniture collection now called OE1 (Optimised Essentials). One of the first seven principles was that rules can be broken when necessary. In other words, at the beginning we allowed the project space to evolve in the direction it needed to without constricting it too much. It was an admission that sometimes rules can limit innovation and invention, and a project, when young, should be free to find its logic. The execs in the room nodded, and we were grateful that they understood this principle! Eventually, as the project definition became more refined and the products more specific for the future we faced, we didn’t need that rule anymore. The rules were carefully kept, but they evolved too.

Being able to balance knowing when to hold onto a principle and when to let it go is a sign not just of skill

The 007 Alter Mirror for Vaarni, Finland, holds a secret: behind one of the angled walls are pegs that can discreetly hold keys or other items. The frame also can be used as a small shelf for a cherished item.

but also of experience. Our vision for a project starts with a conversation between us that probably began long ago and that gets materialized with the project ask and its development. But it is still an evolution of the same conversation, an ongoing one about how we live and how we live with things.

Paschke: How do color and material come into play when you think about systems and language?

Colin: Material logic derives from structural demands, manufacturing considerations (including economics and sustainability), and evaluating applicability for function, longevity, and livability over time. Color exists, as often as possible, from material itself. If color must be applied, it is found as a family and is relational. Sometimes is it related to

other things produced by the brand; other times it is related to things we are likely living with nearby but not necessarily by the same brand.

Color is never just expressive in and of itself because we are designing the thing not to be seen (noticed) but to be used—there’s a difference. We are mostly being as reductive as possible with color, for instance, choosing the color of the mirror glass in the Vaarnii mirror to be a warm tone to compliment, not contrast, the surrounding Finnish pine. But it also compliments the face of the person in front of it!

Sometimes colorists make a beautiful system for a range of products that makes sense to themselves but that might not make sense with how people will actually live with these items. For us, the ultimate system acknowledges the room, the street, and the world (and is not just self-referential).

Clockwise (from top left): The OE1 Mobile Easel, OE1 Micro 3-Pack, and OE1 Storage Trolleys for Herman Miller, U.S., and the Evoke Radios for Pure, UK.

Chosen by IDSA Staff and confirmed by At-Large Director of Awards ClayVon Lowe, IDSA, the 20/22 Recognitions highlight 20 Professional, Young Professional, and Affiliate members who dedicated their time and talents this year to the betterment of our Society and advancing the industrial design profession through information, education, community, and advocacy. In 2022, many of our chapters returned to in-person gatherings and when the totals are counted, 2022 was one of our most active years ever with over 125 events happening (virtually and in-person) all over the country throughout the year. We look back on this success with gratitude for our members who continue to step up, build connections, and create opportunities through their volunteer service. Because of you, our community stayed strong and flourished in 2022.

We help creative minds discover talents, learn new skills, and prepare for a career in industrial design.

Our programming connects professional members of the industrial design community, corporate partners, and academic institutions through charitable efforts that provide equitable access to education, networking opportunities, and other career-building resources for emerging designers studying at high schools and colleges across the United States.

www.idsadesignfoundation.org

Sensory Rehabilitation Aids by Jaehyeok (Jacob) Lee, 2022 Design Foundation Gianninoto Scholarship Recipient