MFA in Interaction Design: Home

Blog

  1. Spend Two Weeks in Italy Studying Graphic Design

    Masters Workshop: Design History, Theory and Practice in Rome and Venice

    Spend two weeks studying visual communication — especially typography — in Venice and Rome, the birthplace of Western typographic tradition. Visit the Trajan Column, the Pantheon and the Arch of Titus. Examine inscriptions on Roman buildings and monuments that have long been a typographic ideal. This workshop in design history, theory and practice will be an intensive period of study that enables students to research and analyze the roots of typography, while practicing contemporary design with Italian and American designers and design historians.

    The workshop will foster multidisciplinary activities — through immersion — in architecture, fashion, literature, theater, and even cuisine. Collaborations with Italian design organizations and businesses will result in projects and products for publication and production.

    Schedule
    Classes are held Monday through Saturday and include time for critiques and personal exploration, as well as field trips to some of the best design studios in Italy.

    Prerequisite
    Students must be at least seniors in a design or art school, or design professionals.

    Tuition
    $6500 *

    * Tuition includes: Accommodations, continental breakfast, workshops, transportation for off-campus visits, guided tours of architectural and archeological sites, train from Venice to Rome, and all program receptions.

    Note: An interview (in-person or via telephone) is required for acceptance to this program.

    For further information contact the MFA Design Department at SVA.

  2. Matt Owens says GOOD-bye to 2008

    Matt Owens, founding member of Athletics, teamed up with GOOD Magazine to review 2008 in a short video collaboration. The video takes a look at some of the numbers that shaped our lives this past year. We are pleased to welcome Matt to the MFA Interaction Design faculty.

    Students in the program can look forward to seeing more of Matt in Thesis Preparation in the second year of their studies.

     

  3. The Iterations of Dot Dot Dot

    We’ve been making some improvements to the Dot Dot Dot Lectures based on attendee feedback. As we’re on our third iteration of the lecture series, we wanted to take the time to let you know about some of the changes.

    After each lecture, we send out a survey to each attendee, asking for feedback. How appropriate was the venue (a bar)? We have 10-minute lectures—a bit of an unusual format. Are they too short? Who else would attendees like to see speak?

    Each month, we comb through attendee feedback and decide how to improve the lecture experience for the following month. Below are some of the improvements we’ve made in a number of areas in response to what we’ve heard:

    Visibility

    During the first two lectures, attendees noted an inability to see the screen/speaker unless they arrived early and got a seat in front. In response, we’ve added more seating and an additional projection screen for viewers to be comfortable in both the north and south ends of the venue, White Rabbit. Michael Surtees, an attendee of all three lectures has written about the iterative lecture experience.

    Seating

    We’ve had to limit the RSVPs because of seating in the past, so we’ve added more seating to avoid the uncomfortable sitting-on-the-floor option.

    Timing

    We had heard it was difficult for people with full-time jobs to make it to the lectures at 6PM, so we’ve moved the time to 6:30-8:30PM going forward, allowing for an extra half hour to arrive.

    Networking

    Attendees asked for more time to network—both to ask speakers questions (we don’t allow time for Q&A) and to meet other attendees. We’ve added a short intermission between the two sets of speakers.

    Topic Integration

    We asked, “Who else would you like to see speak? What kind of topics would you like to see covered at upcoming lectures?” and our topics and speakers are direct result of your feedback. The following are just some of the topics that have been suggested:

    • Agile UX
    • Brainstorming
    • Content
    • Design thinking
    • Distillation
    • Environmental issues
    • Illustration
    • Iteration
    • Mediated conversations
    • Photography
    • Prototyping
    • Translating the experience (how we tell our families what we do)
    • Visualization software

    MFA Interaction Design Faculty

    Attendees note that they want to see more MFA Interaction Design faculty in the lineup, and we want to take a moment to share our framework: Each Dot Dot Dot Lecture hosts one MFA Interaction Design faculty member and three guests. So a faculty member is part of every program. Likewise, each event typically has 3-4 faculty members milling about as attendees themselves.

    As always, thanks to our lecturers and all the enthusiastic attendees. We’re listening to your feedback and continuing to iterate on the series.

    Find out about the next event here.

  4. Faculty in the News: Product Design, Renegades, and Shortcuts in Web Design

    Jeffrey Zeldman’s Web Standards Advisor Launches
    Yesterday, Jeffrey Zeldman launched Web Standards Advisor, an extension for Adobe Dreamweaver. It’s intended to help beginning and intermediate coders “write smarter, more compliant markup that makes site content easier to find.” It’s also intended to help coders using Dreamweaver at any level who know about web standards but don’t want to spend a lot of time thinking about it, or site owners who want to run the product on their own site. Congratulations to Jeffrey on this great accomplishment, helping people make website content easier to find! We delighted that Jeffrey is part of the faculty, teaching “Selling Design” in the second year of the program.

    “The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady”
    This week, Steve Duenes was named among the renegades who have been bringing NYTimes.com readers “a series of audacious new features” in by New York Magazine. Word Train, one such feature, asked readers to submit the words that best described their moods, and what might seem at first un-Timesian is getting quite a lot of attention. We proudly congratulate Steve and are honored to welcome him as part of the faculty, leading a course on Information Visualization.

    “Making Modular Layout Systems”
    Jason Santa Maria, building on some of the CSS that “Eric Meyer employed a few years back on the A List Apart design,” created a set of classes to use to achieve variety for different content in layout out webpages. He teaches his methodology in a recent 24 ways article, and you can see how he’s putting it to use on jasonsantamaria.com. (Jeffrey Zeldman published Recession Tips For Web Designers on 24 Ways as well.) Congratulations to Jason; we’re looking forward to Jason joining the faculty to teach Communicating Design in the fall of 2009.

    For a full list of courses including the first year lineup, please see our curriculum page.

  5. Lecture: “The Modularists,” February 18


    Join us for the next in our lecture series featuring four speakers giving four talks in forty minutes. This month’s topic:

    “The Modularists”
    The insight required to craft modular systems requires designers to think through several variations of form and function — often beyond the original intent of an object, product, or service. How much does the design of discrete modules affect the integrity of the larger system? Should designers expect to wield control over any part of a user experience of modular systems? Four guest lecturers will examine a range of projects and trends in modular design, culminating in a discussion of the role of modularity among a group who value putting the power to create in the hands of everyone.

    Speakers