Blog
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MFA Interaction Design x Kicker Studio
This week, we launched a project with Kicker Studio to create an interactive installation for the entrance of our studio. Follow Kicker Studio’s blog to learn about the project concept, success metrics, and to track the project progress.
Hallway entrance to the Interaction Design studio where posters hang for now.
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MFA Interaction Design Fall Lecture Series: Dave Gray
This fall, the MFA Interaction Design Department welcomes visiting lectures in an intimate twice-a-month series to inspire conversation, pursue change, and incite creation.
Knowledge Games: A Grammar for Creativity and Innovation
We’re moving from an industrial to a knowledge economy, where creativity and innovation will be the keys to value. New rules apply. Yet two hundred years of industrial habits are embedded in our workplaces, our schools and our systems of government. How must we change our work practices to thrive in the 21st Century? Dave Gray will share insights from his upcoming book on the work of creativity and innovation, due to be published in the first quarter of 2010.
About the Speaker
Dave Gray, XPLANE, Founder and Chairman.
Dave Gray is the founder and chairman of XPLANE, an information design consultancy serving Fortune 100, NGO and government clients around the world. An artist, journalist and information designer, he is passionate about applied creativity. More information is available at http:/davegrayinfo.com.
Details
Wednesday, October 14
6-8PM
MFA Interaction Design Department
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
(View Map)About MFA Interaction Design
The MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts. It explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life, and intends to increase the relevancy of design to business and to society so designers can make a difference.
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Liz Danzico Interviews Kathy Ryan
For issue 73 of Eye, the International Review of Graphic Design, Chair Liz Danzico sat down with the photo editor of The New York Times Magazine Kathy Ryan for an in depth interview.
Liz Danzico: What is the role of a photo editor?
Kathy Ryan: Simply to make the photography happen, from the initial idea to the page. Some days, it’s being a coach back in the New York office. Other days, it’s discovering great work in a gallery, and getting that artist to shoot for the magazine for the first time.
The most important part of what I do is ‘casting’ – choosing the photographer. The person you choose to do an assignment defines it. If that match is right, it’s smooth sailing.
LD: Did you always want to be a picture editor?
KR: I didn’t have that talent early on. I might have had the inherent ability to see a good picture, but not the confidence. I’ve gained that confidence at the New York Times, working with editors who have conveyed to me what matters about storytelling and how to present stories in a provocative way.
Knowing whether a picture is good or not is a constant evolution grounded in real work. Recognising formal qualities is somewhat inherent, in the way that someone might have a good ear. The other part – how to juxtapose images so that they’re meaningful or knowing what makes a good cover – I was fortunate enough to learn.
LD: What makes a good photograph?
KR: It’s a balance between art and content. With art, it’s pure visual delight. And because it’s the New York Times Magazine, we balance that with content. At the same time, most of the photographs have to deliver information [but] they don’t have to literally illustrate the text. We often have leeway for the photos to be more interpretive and elaborate beyond the text. The photography is expected to be a powerful voice unto itself.
LD: You once said that curating an exhibition requires ‘different muscles’ to editing a magazine. What are the differences?
KR: Curating a show is much looser; you only need to put really good work up on the walls. With editing, there’s a different level of pressure because the photography has to achieve so much. Curating must be disciplined so when viewers walk through the show they’re changed in some way. The juxtapositions change viewers emotionally and intellectually.
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Eye is available on newsstands, design book stores, and online at Eye shop.
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Make/Think - AIGA Design Conference
“What is designing today, and how do designers define their own influence within the dichotomy of making versus thinking?”
These questions form the basis of this year’s AIGA Design Conference, “Make/Think,” which will explore the ways that designers focus on making beautiful things and thinking about problems strategically, and the unique and powerful combination of both roles.
This year’s featured speakers include faculty members Jake Barton, Jennifer Bove, Khoi Vinh, chair Liz Danzico, and many more.
Details
October 8-11
Memphis Cook Convention Center
255 North Main Street
Memphis, Tennesse -
Designing Obama: One Week Mark
One week ago, former Design Director for the Obama Campaign, Scott Thomas, launched his book, Designing Obama, during his lecture on “USAbility” as part of the Fall Lecture Series at MFA Interaction Design. A work of collaboration, Designing Obama is a chronicle of the art and design from the historic campaign. The 360-page full color book includes a forward by the co-founder of the MFA Interaction Design program, Steven Heller, and Pentagram’s Michael Bierut. To date, it is one of the most well-funded and successful projects on Kickstarter, an online platform where people can pledge to good “ideas and endeavors.”
Faculty member Rachel Abrams reviews the Scott Thomas lecture for techPresident, and praised the work for bridging the gap between campaigners and the populace.
“This time, their success lay in, amongst other things, aligning the design philosophy for the online experience with what the candidate would stand for in office: Promising transparency, responsiveness, public focus, agility, coherence and consistency of purpose and presentation.”
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Liz Danzico Contributes to Hack2Work
Chair Liz Danzico contributes two posts to Core77’s Hack2Work—a collection of essential tips to help the design professional work faster and smarter.
Read Check Please, How to Learn About Your Clients From Their Table Manners
Read 5 Simple Ways to Let Go and Give in to New Digital Routines
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Rachel Abrams: Dispatches from Gov 2.0
Faculty member Rachel Abrams reports in two parts from the Gov 2.0 expo and summit in D.C.—a gathering to bring government leaders and innovators of Web 2.0 together to explore how technology can enable transparency, participation, collaboration, and efficiency at all levels of government. Abrams notes the opportunity here, especially, for the designer to step forward.
“Service designers—who tend to be rigorous thinkers, great story-tellers, and experienced opportunity-spotters—have a way of framing possibilities and, much like regulators, a knack for turning what seems ridiculous today into the obvious and expected of tomorrow. And they are seasoned brokers of client requirements and end-user needs. So when Silicon Valley’s product innovation meets the Beltway’s org charts, it will be designers who are representing the interests of citizens at the center of any Gov 2.0 initiative.”
Read the full dispatches from Good. Part 1, Part 2
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MFA Interaction Design Fall Lecture Series: Laura Forlano
This fall, the MFA Interaction Design Department welcomes visiting lectures in an intimate twice-a-month series to inspire conversation, pursue change, and incite creation. Please join us to welcome Laura Forlano:
Disruptive Organizing: Collaboration and Innovation in the Open Source City
How can we reformat our cities and public spaces—and the architectures and technologies within them—as sites of collaboration and innovation? The open source movement is known not only for the innovation of robust operating systems such as Linux and Internet browsers such as Firefox but also as an emergent form of organizing based on collaborative production. Disruptive Internet technologies such as e-mail, blogging, instant messaging, Skype and Twitter have enabled the widespread availability of cheap, instantaneous global communication. These same technologies have engendered emergent forms of organizing in physical spaces including MeetUp groups, BarCamps (unconferences) and coworking communities. This presentation will discuss disruptive forms of organizing based on a current collaborative project, Breakout! Escape from the Office, which is being presented by The Architectural League of New York as part of the Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City exhibition.
About the Speaker
Laura Forlano is a Kauffman Fellow in Law at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. She received her Ph.D. in Communications from Columbia University in 2008. Her dissertation, “When Code Meets Place: Collaboration and Innovation at WiFi Hotspots,” explores the intersection between organizations, technology (in particular, mobile and wireless technology) and the role of place in communication, collaboration and innovation. Forlano is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Design and Management department at Parsons and the Graduate Programs in International Affairs and Media Studies at The New School where she teaches courses on Innovation, New Media and Global Affairs, Technology and the City, Technology Policy, Sustainable Design and Business Ethics. She serves as a board member of NYCwireless and the New York City Computer Human Interaction Association.
Details
Wednesday, September 23
6-8PM
MFA Interaction Design Department
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
(View Map)About MFA Interaction Design
The MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts. It explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life, and intends to increase the relevancy of design to business and to society so designers can make a difference.
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Applications Open for Fall 2010
We’re pleased to announce that online applications are open for fall 2010. Prospective students can now apply online through January 15, 2010. 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 to talk, drop a line to Qing Qing Chen, Assistant to the Chair, at interactiondesign at sva dot edu or 212.592.2703.
If you’ll be in New York City in October, stop by the department for an Open House, where you can ask your questions in person. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
Students from “The Practice of Interaction Design”
Primary classroom connected to the MFA studio
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Local Projects Launches Make History
As part of the The National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum, Local Projects launches Make History, a collaborative storytelling website that seeks to gather every untold story about 9/11. Users of the site can upload videos, photos, narratives, and in short, transcribe and share their experience with the millions whose lives were forever changed on that day.
Screencapture of the Make History website.
RELATED
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Robert Fabricant on the Future of Kindle
In his latest editorial for Fast Company, faculty member Robert Fabricant offers five strategies for Kindle’s survival as formidable forces, such as talks of an iTablet, and the very idea that “No one reads anymore” gather. By examining TIVO, iTunes, Wii and other successful products in the consumer electronics market, Fabricant shows how Amazon still “is perfectly positioned to lead the way” in the e-book race.
The Amazon Kindle. Image credit: gawker.com
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MFA Interaction Design Fall Lecture Series: Scott Thomas, “USAbility”
This fall, the MFA Interaction Design Department welcomes visiting lectures in an intimate twice-a-month series to inspire conversation, pursue change, and incite creation. Please join us to welcome Scott Thomas, Design Director for Obama for America:
USAbility
Scott Thomas the former design director at Obama for America will discuss how interaction design made a huge difference in the past election. All too often, discussions of analytics, click through rates, and search engine optimization cloud the important truth that online campaigns and communities are for human beings. Come discover how superior design, technological collaboration, and authentic messaging, can truly change the world.
About the Speaker
Scott Thomas, Obama for America, Design Director; The Post Family
Scott Thomas is constantly seeking the simplest answer to complex problems. Scott began his design pursuits studying architecture before bouncing to graphic design and web development.
Prior to moving to Chicago, where he set his sights on user-experience design, Scott called London’s Shoreditch home. From products to websites, Scott works to simplify the experience of use.
In 2006, he and five other creative types began a design collective, lovingly known as The Post Family. The group is devoted to supporting “family” member’s design habits-from silkscreen 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. He is currently writing a book that explains how an obscure senator rose to the highest office in the land and celebrity status with the aid of branding and design.
Scott plans to continue designing for social causes that might just someday change the world.
Details
Wednesday, September 16
6-8PM
MFA Interaction Design Department
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
(View Map)About MFA Interaction Design
The MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts. It explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life, and intends to increase the relevancy of design to business and to society so designers can make a difference.
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David Womack: Can Information Be Saved?
Faculty member David Womack, who will be teaching the course “Narrative and Interactivity” next spring semester, spins hot button topics like “preservation” and “sustainability” on a resource we think is all the more abundant: digital information. The vast number of news, blogs, articles, photos, and links available with a click, but just how “preservable” are they? In issue 7 of INSPIRE, Womack discusses how vast gigabytes of information is being saved, and isn’t. Below is an excerpt.
“The fact is, we are creating information at an unprecedented pace, but it is being forgotten almost as quickly. Unlike the previous records of human endeavors, which were carved in stone, pressed into clay tablets, or printed on paper, today’s digital information disappears without a trace. Websites go dark and the databases are dismantled or over-written. The disks and drives we use to store information rapidly decay. Even as the pace of information-creation has accelerated, we have fewer lasting records of the present, and are remembering less and less about our recent past.”
The history of the Internet is contained in this box, which is 20’ by 8’ by 8’ and weighs 26,500 pounds. Credit: INSPIRE Magazine
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Recap: Alex Wright Keynote at UX Australia ‘09
Johnny Holland Magazine reviewed the three days of the UX Australia Conference, including a “mind-bending” keynote speech from faculty member Alex Wright. As Director of User Experience and Product Research at The New York Times, Alex gave a presentation “tracing information architecture from ancient pre-written culture to the present day, via Bablylonian libraries and 19th century predictions of technology.”
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Jake Barton to speak at Pioneers of Change
Faculty member Jake Barton will be speaking at Pioneers of Change, a festival celebrating Dutch design, fashion, and architecture on New York’s Governors Island to celebrate 400 years of Dutch-American friendship. Jake will be joined by fellow National Design Awards honoree Scott Stowell of Open, Arne Hendriks of Platform 21, in a panel “open talk” discussion moderated by Julie Iovine, Executive Editor of Architects Newspaper.
Details
Thursday, September 10
2:30-4:00PM
Governor’s Island
New York CityAbout Pioneers of Change:
Pioneers of Change encourages a more responsible and sustainable approach to living. The event celebrates the blurring of low- and high-brow, establishing new collaborations, encouraging involvement and valuing handcraft and the local context.
Since the economic downfall, the notion of luxury has come under attack. Pioneers of Change does not apply the luxury tag to an ethos of riches as such but to qualities now hard to come by, including space, fresh air, respect, care, silence, slowness and time.
The event will be kicked off on September 10th with open talks. Visitors can listen and debate, watch and participate, relax and think, eat and drink, play their music, be inspired, connect and, simply, enjoy. They can also shop at the pop up store of affordable Dutch design ware, all under 100 dollars.
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Welcome New Students
This week, we begin a new tradition at the School of Visual Arts: the MFA in Interaction Design program — a graduate-level program with an inaugural class of 18 remarkable students and 25 faculty members. This tradition carries forward a long-standing tradition started in 1947 by Silas Rhodes and Burne Hogarth who founded the Cartoonists and Illustrators School with just three faculty members and 35 students. Then, they created a model whereby faculty were working professionals and courses were held at night. This model allowed students to work during the days, brushing up on professional skills if desired.
We continue this tradition today. Students have come from across the country and the world to join us in this first-year program, to build a new tradition, but to continue that one set forth by the school’s founders more than 60 years ago. The curriculum will give students a grounding in “design fundamentals, while helping them cultivate the soft skills so often required in the modern workplace: strategic thinking, entrepreneurship, ethics, and communicating with clients.”
To that end, design is what we’ve come this far to do, and what we’ll carry forward after we leave. The pursuit of it involves unique skills crucial to shaping experiences and creating lasting value in our society. I’m looking forward to watching this group build on their skills over the next couple of years — and our program both carrying forward a tradition and charting some new ones of our own.
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Not all updates belong in the curriculum, and the Interaction Blog is where we talk about news and events around interaction design far and wide.
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- Breaking Ground at the Visible Futures Lab
- Value of Web Presence, or on No More Resumes
- Paul Ford on the Epiphanator On The Media
- Getting Together: Interaction 12, Day Two
- Form Language, Guinness, and One Big Family: Interaction 12, Day One
- Thinking Thesis: Erin Moore on Privacy & Information Sharing
- Verge Review: The Language of Geography
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