MFA in Interaction Design: Home

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  1. Newest Additions

    As the program grows, it’s truly being shaped by the expertise and passion of the faculty taking part. That’s why we’re particularly delighted to be announcing the following instructors and courses newly added to the roster:

    Steve Duenes, Graphics Director, NYTimes.com
    Course: Information Visualization, spring 2010

    Robert Fabricant, Executive Creative Director, frog design, joined by Clay Wiedemann and Josh Musick, both of frog design
    Course: Prototyping User Experiences, spring 2010

    Robert Faludi, Resident Researcher, Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University
    Course: Fundamentals of Physical Computing, fall 2009

    Tamara Giltsoff, Managing Director, OZOlab
    Course: Designing for Good, spring 2010

    See descriptions of all courses in the program.

  2. Upcoming Fall Information Session

    Come join faculty members and staff for an afternoon of informal presentations, open audience Q&A, and discussion. Drinks and snacks will follow, when you can get to know some of the faculty and prospective students and ask questions about what they have planned.

    Saturday, Nov 1
    2-4PM
    133 West 21st Street (View Map)
    Room 101-C
    New York City

    RSVP or contact the department for more details at 212.592.2561.

  3. Save the Dates: Lecture Series

    Big ideas don’t fit in tidy boxes or formal categories. Starting next month, we’ll be holding a free monthly lecture series that will continue through the fall of next year. Come out to join us for informal, short lectures on a single topic each month at White Rabbit in the Lower East Side.

    The “Dot Dot Dot” Lecture Series is meant for broad explorations of interaction design, business, and aesthetic inspiration. Three practitioners give three talks in thirty minutes, with drinks. Wisdom will be revealed and methods will be shared in a setting intended to satisfy both social and scholarly pursuits.

    Upcoming Dates
    Thursday, November 13, 6-8PM (RSVP)
    Monday, December 8, 6-8PM
    White Rabbit
    145 E Houston Street (View Map)
    New York

    More will be revealed about speakers, special guests, and partner gifts.

  4. Applications Open for Fall 2009

    This week, online applications opened for fall 2009. Prospective students can now apply online through January 15, 2009, although we’ll continue to take applications on a rolling admissions basis until spaces are filled for the program.

    Find out more about the application requirements or go directly to the application here. If you have questions, or want to stop by for a tour or a talk, drop a line to Mary Jeys, Assistant to the Chair, at interactiondesign at sva dot edu or 212.592.2561.

  5. Last Graduate Portfolio Day

    There’s one more city on the tour, after holding sessions in both New York and San Francisco. SVA Admissions will be looking at portfolios and chatting about the program in Chicago at the Graduate Portfolio Days on Nov 2. Stop by to say hello.

    Sunday, Nov 2
    12-4PM
    School of the Art Institute of Chicago
    The Sage Studios for Fashion Design
    36 South Wabash Avenue, 7th floor (View Map)
    Chicago

  6. Preview: Interview with Rachel Abrams

    Rachel Abrams is Creative Director of Turnstone Consulting, New York, a collaborative design practice, where she designs people-friendly, technology-mediated experiences for commercial spaces and public places. She is on deck to be one of the first faculty members for fall 2009, and we recently talked with her about what she’s planning.

    School of Visual Arts: You’re teaching a course called Think, Make, Rinse, Repeat: Strategies in Design Practice. Why are strategies for practicing design of particular importance to graduate students in interaction design? How will you approach it?

    Rachel Abrams: Design practice can be about strategy, business and opportunity-spotting, meeting needs and inventing products and services — all that good stuff. But up close, it’s also about tactics, iterative thinking, having fun, drawing inspiration and organizing the task of making things.

    The focus of this class is on those tactics: to reinforce a sense of interaction designers’ overall process, to rehearse how to arrive at satisfying, effectively designed outcomes, no matter what the context, content, media or participant audience. Students will be introduced to tools for design thinking — from concept to completion — so they can apply what they learn here to their other classes, and beyond. This course will complement the business strategy and the service design classes in the first and third semesters.

    SVA: In your professional work, you do a fair amount of work in service design. How do service design for public spaces and storytelling intersect with the teaching you do, both with clients and with students?

    RA: It’s a neat crossover: Most of the opportunities I’ve had to refine my design thinking and practice have come from work on clients’ projects. There’s always an outlined process in mind. Things get interesting as you track how clients’ needs, resources, or spirit can influences that process, whether the brief is to generate content for an exhibit, media for a flagship retail experience, improve mass-transit service or support an organization through internal change. I’ll draw from case studies of my own folio, and from exemplary work from other designers to see if we can interpret what kind of design thinking they pursued to reach the outcomes we live and interact with every day.

  7. Information Design of a Different Kind

    The new department is being modeled after a working design studio, so we’ve been visiting design studios around the city with the architecture team to observe how interaction designers use their workspaces. Although we won’t break ground on our new space until after the new year, we’re busy reviewing blueprints and studying collaborations across the city to determine the best way to design it.

  8. Upcoming Graduate Portfolio Days

    Following a good turnout at the New York City event, staff from SVA admissions will be available at the Graduate Portfolio Days in Chicago and San Francisco this October and November. If you’re in the area, you can stop by to get feedback on your portfolio, ask questions about your application, or just find out more about SVA.

    Western Graduate Portfolio Day
    Saturday, Oct 11
    12-4PM
    California College of the Arts
    1111 Eighth Street (View Map)
    San Francisco, CA 94107

    Central Graduate Portfolio Day
    Sunday, Nov 2
    12-4PM
    School of the Art Institute of Chicago
    The Sage Studios for Fashion Design
    36 South Wabash Avenue, 7th floor (View Map)
    Chicago, IL 60603