In 2001, Russ flew in an airplane from Georgia to New York. Once there, he attended art school at NYU. He also spent a lot of time writing and acting. It turns out his mind was more interested in problem solving than in artistic expression (though it was a close race) and so he chose to pursue a career in design, particularly the interactive variety. In the few short years since graduating, he has worked for RDA International, Nitro Group, The Ingredient as well as independently through his own design studio, Strange Native.

Just before school ended, Russ joined the independent rock band, The XYZ Affair. In addition to recording albums and playing sold out shows in some of New York City’s best venues, they made music videos and toured the country. That’s about as good as it gets.

Russ applied to the Interaction Design MFA program because he believes it will fulfill his childish dream of being an inventor.

He chronicles most of what he’s excited about at: www.strangenative.com

Past Life

BS in Fine Arts from New York University

Selected Projects

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  Designing Local Currency

  Students were assigned the task of designing their own local currency.

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  Interaction Design Final Project

  Students began their process by exploring project ideas within the themes of memory, behavior, politeness and sharing.

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  Physical Computing Final

  Students were asked to devise a project that would allow them to use a semester’s knowledge about physical computing.

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  Information Visualization

  Students were asked to visualize a section within the permanent collection at MoMA or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or, they may visualize a single sporting event or season.

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  NYC BigApps

  Each student was asked to design a mobile application using at least one source of data from the NYC.gov Data Mine.

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  Interactive User Experience on The High Line

  Students were asked to create a networked, mobile or interactive installation that enhances or extends the experience of the High Line park in NYC.

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  In Transit

  For their final projects, students were asked to identify a problem within New York City’s subway system.

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  Re-imagine the New York Times

  Students were given the opportunity to re-imagine the New York Times as a startup.