Speakers
Friday Night Event Speakers:
DESIGNING OBAMA, Chicago
Dubbed a “strategic and smart campaign” by Fast Company, the Obama “brand” has received much recognition not only within the design community, but also throughout the nation. Sol Sender and Scott Thomas, creators of the Obama logo and website, will describe their experiences in developing a political “brand” of historical impact. Carol Coletta, CEO of CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the public radio show Smart City, will moderate their conversation. Discussion will evolve around the logo that was created in early 2007 by the Chicago firm Sender LLC, in partnership with MODE, along with the materialization of Barackobama.com, which was designed, developed and managed by the campaign’s internal team led by Mr. Thomas.
The event features a special exhibition of posters from Threadless Loves Democracy: a challenge to design the most unique and conceptual call to vote – sponsored by Sappi Fine Paper, Threadless, Rock The Vote and Jones Soda. The event will also feature winning buttons from the McCoy “Get Out the Vote” button competition on 24-7designheaven.com. A limited number of buttons and posters will be available to all guests.
Sol Sender
As founder and principal of Sender LLC, Sol Sender spearheaded the logo development for Barack Obama's historic 2008 campaign. Now a strategist with VSA Partners, he works across disciplines to impact the communications of some of the world's most valuable businesses and brands. Over the course of his career, his work as a designer and a strategist has been recognized by the AR100, the Webby Awards, The International Web Awards, Communication Arts, How Magazine and as a nominee for The Brit Insurance Design of the Year. A faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1999, his articles on design history and design education have been published and distributed by Allworth Press.
Scott Thomas
Scott Thomas (a.k.a SimpleScott) is constantly seeking the simplest answer to complex problems. His design pursuits began by studying architecture before bouncing to graphic design and web development. He started practicing design in London's Shoreditch, before moving to Chicago where he started focusing on user experience design informed through immersive user research. From products to websites, Scott works to simplify the experience of use.
In 2006, he and 5 others began a design collective, lovingly titled, The Post Family. The group is devoted to supporting each others design habits, from silk screen to letterpress, from illustration to blogging, in an effort to "get back to the hand".
In 2007, Scott's career took a dramatic leap when he was invited to join the New Media team at Obama for America. The chance encounter led Scott to becoming the Design Director of the historic Obama Presidential campaign.
Carol Coletta
Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City. Previously, she served as president of Coletta & Company in Memphis. In addition, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation.
This year she was named one of the world’s 50 most important urban experts by a leading European think tank.
This event is sponsored by Unisource, Sappi, and Getty
FH3 Main stage speakers:
Meredith Davis holds Master’s degrees in design and education and is Director of the Master of Graphic Design Program in Graphic Design at North Carolina State University. She has taught, administered, and consulted on graduate programs for 30 years. In addition to graduate studios, Meredith teaches in the areas of design and cognition, thesis development, and the preparation of master’s students for teaching careers. Meredith has worked nationally and internationally with professional design and education associations to set agendas for graduate education, including six years as AIGA’s representative to the NASAD Commission on Accreditation. She has delivered more than 150 lectures and authored nearly 100 articles, books, and publications. She serves on the editorial board of Design Issues and reviews manuscripts for MIT Press, Thames and Hudson, Harry N Abrams Publishing, Visible Language, and Design Studies Journal. Her book on design theory for Thames and Hudson will be released in 2009-2010.
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville received a B.A. in art history from Barnard College in 1962, an M.F.A. from Yale in 1964, and honorary doctorates from California College of Arts and Crafts and Moore College of Art. She was designated "Design Legend "by the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 2006 and a "Grand Master by the Art Directors club of NY in 2008.. Sheila's numerous publications on art and culture include The Photographs of Dorothy Norman and The Motown Album, as well as public art works: Biddy Mason: Time and Place, Omoide no Shotokyo in Los Angeles, Search: Literature in Flushing, At the start…At long last… at New York’s Inwood “A” train station, Path of Stars in New Haven and Step(pe) in Yekaterinburg, Russia. She worked as designer for Chanticleer Press, Yale University Press and Olivetti Publicita in Milan before opening "The Sheila Studio" in 1970. Her work in books, magazines, and newspapers includes the redesign of the Los Angeles Times, special issues of the Aspen Times, Everywoman, American Cinematographer, and Arts in Society. Her posters and fine press editions are in the special collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and numerous university and public libraries. In 1971, at the California Institute of the Arts, she created the first women’s design program and, in 1973, founded the Woman’s Building and its Women’s Graphic Center in Los Angeles. In 1981, she initiated and chaired the Department of Communication Design at Otis/Parsons. Ms. de Bretteville joined the Yale faculty in 1990, the first tenured woman in the Yale University School of Art.
Gerard Hadders and Ewan Lentjes
Gerard Hadders was co-founder of the magazine and design group Hard Werken in 1978. In 1979 he graduated in fine arts and photography. The eighties of the 20th century were characterized by a gung-ho! attitude towards fine arts and design. In this atmosphere he developed into a ‘professional borderliner’, a pathology that still characterizes his design practice. A professional in almost all facets of graphic design, from the late eighties on he developed a strong interest in architecture as sign and symbol. The inspiration of the legacy of Robert Venturi materialized from 1986 on in projects that set out to turn architecture into corporate messengers. In 1992 he set up the design department of the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht in collaboration with Jan van Toorn. Subsequently, Gerard Hadders taught for 12 years at the Post St. Joost Graphic Design Dept. and developed a curriculum on the basis of the research of urban visual culture. He was co-author of the publication CopyProof, a new method for design education (2000). Since 1993 he has run the network based Buro Plantage that deals with graphic design questions at large.
Ewan Lentjes studied theology and received a Ph.D. in ethics at the faculty of theology and in social conflict studies at the faculty of social sciences of the University of Nijmegen in 1985. He taught philosophy and graphic design theory at the Academy of Arts Arnhem (ArtEZ); since 2003 he has taught design-theory at the Academy St.Joost in Breda; he was Associate Professor of Visual Rhetoric, initiated by Hugues Boekraad (2004-2006). Currently he is Associate Professor of Art, Culture & Economy, led by Dany Jacobs – a shared initiative of the Municipality of Arnhem, HAN University of Applied Sciences, and the ArtEZ Institute of Arts. As a design-critic he has been working as editor of the Dutch design-magazine Items (1998-2003). In 2003 he was commissioned with a Cultural Mediation Grant from the Dutch Foundation of Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) to study the development in the post-war professional achievements of Dutch graphic design.
Kenya Hara is a representative to the Nippon Design Center Inc. and is a Professor at Musashino Art University. He is engaged in communication projects in various fields based on a recognition that design covers a wide range of disciplines. He develops design deeply rooted in Japanese culture, particularly in the opening and closing ceremony programs for the Nagano Winter Olympic Games and the promotional campaign for the AICHI EXPO 2005. He is involved in product design promoting Japanese sake and rice produced nationwide, including the products of Nikka Whiskey Distilling Co., Ajinomoto General Foods Inc. (AGF) and others. For the renewal project for Ginza Matsuya department store in Tokyo, he conducted integrated design direction ranging from space design to graphic design. Hara presented the possibility of a new communication format by focusing on tactile perception in the signage system for the Umeda Clinic. As a producer of exhibitions such as “Macaroni Exhibition of Architects” and “Re-Design: The Daily Products of the 21st Century”, he helped direct our attention to daily products. The “Re-Design” exhibition was awarded both the Icograda Excellence Award and the Icsid Design Excellence Award at the 17th Biennial of Industrial Design. It also received the Mainichi Design Award 2000. He was enrolled as a board member for MUJI in 2001and launched the ad campaign for this client that won the Tokyo Art Directors Club Grand Prix Award. Among many awards Hara has received both overseas and in Japan are the awards for book design, including the Kodansha Publication Culture Award, Hiromu Hara Award, Yusaku Kamekura Design Award, and the Japan Culture and Design Award for the body of his design work.
Keynote Speaker:
W. J. T. Mitchell is Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. He is editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Critical Inquiry, a quarterly devoted to critical theory in the arts and human sciences. A scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature, Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues. Under his editorship, Critical Inquiry has published special issues on public art, psychoanalysis, pluralism, feminism, the sociology of literature, canons, race and identity, narrative, the politics of interpretation, postcolonial theory, and many other topics. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Morey Prize in art history given by the College Art Association of America. In 2003, he received the University of Chicago’s prestigious Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. His publications include: “The Pictorial Turn,” Artforum, March 1992; “What Do Pictures Want?” October, Summer 1997; What Do Pictures Want? (2005); The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon (1998); Picture Theory (1994); Art and the Public Sphere (1993); Landscape and Power (1992); Iconology (1987); The Language of Images (1980); On Narrative (1981); and The Politics of Interpretation (1984).
The following papers will be published online a few weeks after the conference:
DESIGN RESEARCH
Sean Bolan, University of Washington,
Understanding Design: Cultivating Undergraduate Design Research
Heidi Cies, Syracuse University,
Social Responsibility in the Visual Communications Curriculum
Kelly Costello, Institute of Design at IIT,
Organizing for Innovation: New Challenges for Designers
Stephanie Cunningham, Florida Atlantic University,
Learning from Victor Papanek
Michael R. Gibson, University of North Texas,
Making the Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic and Political Case for a Master’s Level
Educational Experience Titled, Collaborative Innovation Studies
Michael Renner, The Basel School of Design,
Towards an applied Iconic Research
Stacie Rohrbach, Carnegie Mellon University,
Effectively Assessing the Learning Outcomes of Students:
The Use of Pre- and Post-Testing Methods
MFA THESIS PROJECTS
Karen Kwan, York University, York University in Toronto,
The Web 2.0 Revolution in Online Design Education: how social networking technologies
are enabling virtual design learning
Valentina Miosuro, North Carolina State University,
Teaching patients system thinking and management skills. Visual skill-training and monitoring
devices for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients
Leilah Rampa, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Wayfinding and Waygiving: Mapping meaningful relationships between design artifacts,
users, and environment
UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM
Leslie Becker, California College of the Arts,
Autonomy at the End of the Beginning
Michael Eppelheimer and Jamie Gray, Kansas City Art Institute
Technology Integration and Blog Culture at the Kansas City Art Institute
Lee Vander Kooi, Indiana University Herron School,
Learning to Design for 21st Century Complexity
John Luttropp and Anthony Inciong, Montclair State University
Graphic Design, Beginning I: A New Approach
Ben Meyer and Renee Seward, University of Cincinnati,
Intersecting Static and Dynamic Methodology
Terry Morris, William Rainey Harper College,
No Web Professional Left Behind: Educating the Next Generation
Angela Rodgers, St. Edward's University,
It is what it is; whaddaya gonna do
N. Silas Munro and Martha Scotford, North Carolina State University,
Design as System / Food as System
2008 launch of first junior-level studio within new curricular structure