Undergraduate, Graduate, and Collaborative Labs outside of the US
TEACHING North Carolina State University and Prior.
Photography, film-making, image making and Graphic Design are connected sharing similar ideas and practices in communication and messaging, photography and other image-making practices biggest effect on culture is through multiple reproduction. Graphic Design was and is influenced by photography and film in concept and practice in how to tell a story or otherwise think through mass communication.
Secondly photography and other image-making practices influence how people think of technology as a designed product and service with active users. Inexpensive consumer cameras and instant photos in part set a precedent for things that we design now to facilitate user generated content, such as smartphones, and other kinds of products and services.
In graphic design, user content/contributions are often part of looking at designing in larger systems environments.
What we think of as separate subjects or disciplines in academia is actually interconnected in cultural practices and user scenarios as part of designing in large systems.
Through 2006, I developed courses and worked with students based on my original area of expertise at NCSU.
Between 2006 and 2010, the curriculum shifted drastically to a very different educational philosophy based on designing in large overlapping systems of users, contexts, interaction, branding and service. Therefore over this period I had to redefine what and how I taught.
I worked to introduce interaction design and information visualization and methodology tied to user issues. This included motion and gesture in interface design, thinking through multiple touchpoints in a service environment, and users with different needs to design for in terms of accessibility.
In 2017 I offered the first international experience in design and social innovation, that allowed me a certain autonomy to build on our approach to large overlapping considerations of context, while introducing a very different framing for design than our regular curriculum.
One of my collaborators in Greece, Maria Patsarika (PhD Sheffield: Sociology and Architecture; learning, participation and place-making; co-design and community engagement) and I formed a collaborative interdisciplinary approach to design and education including service learning. Essentially this was about creating a space of inquiry that the University and my department had little interest in.