Bruce Nussbaum blogs an open letter to President-elect Obama arguing for a council of advisors on design and innovation. He recommends ID dean Patrick Whitney, among others.

Video of presentations from the 2008 Institute of Design Design Research Conference.

Adjunct professor John Paul Kusz of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at IIT's Stuart School of Business, will speak at the 13th annual Sustainable Innovation conference in Malmo, Sweden on October 27-28.

A Fast Company magazine profile of John Maeda ("The Double Vision of John Maeda"), in his new role as president of RISD, mentions ID (in a not entirely flattering light) asbeing, along with Stanford, one of the schools with "strategy-driven and market-obsessed approaches," against which Maeda's RISD program contrasts.

Vijay will present on "Design Strategies Reshaping the Innovation Landscape" at the 33rd annual DMI Conference -- "REMIX" -- in Ogunquit, Maine on October 8.

Elizabeth Dickinson of Metropolis Magazine blogs about the 2008 Design Research Conference, and in particular Don Norman's presentation on "sociable design."

Attendees' photos from the 2008 Design Research Conference are on Flickr.com, tagged "drc2008".

Jon Kolko of frog design reviews the 2008 Design Research Conference on the company's blog, in "Empathy and humanity at the IIT Design Research conference in Chicago."

Patrick Whitney and Larry Keeley are included in Fast Company Magazine's second annual list of "Masters of Design" (scroll down page)

ID welcomes three new full-time faculty for the 2008-2009 academic year:

Tom MacTavish, Visiting Associate Professor, was for the past nine years director of Motorola Labs’ Center for Human Interaction Research. He previoiusly led the Human Interface Technology Center based in Atlanta (GA) for NCR Corporation, and served as Director of Engineering for NCR’s Wireless Communications and Networking engineering group. His interests span the range of activities in Human-Computer Interaction research and development, including strategy formulation, user and technology research, concept development, and product implementation. His courses this fall will include Interface Design, Interactive Media and a workshop related to these topics.

Anijo Mathew, Assistant Professor, has a B.Arch. from Birla Institute of Technology in India, and an MDesS from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is currently working on a PhD at the Open University in UK exploring the intersection of computing and design. his research interests include interactive (computer mediated) spaces, immersive/responsive environments, environmental behavior, and HCI in the design process. His classes this fall will include a workshop about interactive environments and a B session seminar about related content. His research looks at various methods and design mechanisms for the process of design; and the­ semantic appropriation of architecture (place) as enabled by new technologies.

Martin Thaler, Visiting Associate Professor, holds an MFA from the Royal College of Art, London, and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. For the past 12 years he has led multidisciplinary teams at the IDEO Chicago office for companies in the consumer electronics, medical, and furniture industries. He has been a regular member of the ID part-time faculty for many years, co-teaching the product design Research & Demo course. In addition, this fall he will teach an advanced product design workshop, and co-teach the product design Foundation course.

At the same time, ID bids a fond farewell to full-time faculty members Greg Prygrocki and Chris Conley. Professor Prygrocki will ease into retirement while continuing work on the Thinkering Spaces initiative with the MacArthur Foundation; Professor Conley, on sabbatical for the 2008-09 year, will continue to teach on a part-time basis while working on a book about innovation and expanding his work with companies and foundations.

Charles Bezerra (PhD '00) and Motorola have won the 2008 IDEA/Brazil Award for MotoID – an application for Motorola cellular telephones enabling users to obtain information about music playing around the handset, identifying the name of the song, the artist and showing the album cover, when this is available. IDEA/Brazil is a partnership between the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and Objeto Brasil - an NGO dedicated to the promotion of Brazilian design - and is is the first international "feeder competition" of the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA). Charles is quoted in BusinessWeek.com's coverage of the awards ceremony. Download article (PDF , 22.74KB)

Gabe Biller and Kristy Scovel's (MDes '08) instructional video on design ethnography garners attention in the human-factors blogosphere, including Designing for Humans
toddwarfel.com
Dori's Moblog
Insights Qualitativos 2.0
and a ton more.

AROUND THE EDGES, an exhibition of black and white photographs by Steven Poster (BS '67) opens June 23 and continues through August 15, 2008, at AFP Galleries in New York City. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, June 26 from 6 to 8 pm. Poster is perhaps best known for work as a cinematographer for the Hollywood studios, where his credits include Director of Photography for Someone To Watch Over Me and Donny Darko. AROUND THE EDGES is a collection of documentary moments which speak to a number of subjects -- from a quiet interior scene to a landscape to a figure within a complex composition. Download article (PDF , 75.56KB)

Thinkering Space co-investigators Dale Fahnstrom and Greg Prygrocki, Research Coordinator Heloisa Moura, and adjunct instructor T.J. McLeish, will present a paper at the 15th Annual Conference On Learning, June 3-6 at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The paper gives an overview of the Thinkering Space system and introduces the major concepts and interaction frameworks that have grounded its ongoing development.

Charles Bezerra (PhD '00) has published a book, The Humble Designer: Logic and Ethics for Innovation in Brazil. It covers many aspects of design: multidisciplinary perspectives, problem identification, methodology and sustainability. The book also reflects about need for "intellectual modesty" and the role of critical debate in design processes. Influenced by the ethical philosopher Karl Popper, it points to the need for designers to act in the world as agents for reducing misery and violence and increasing freedom and education. (Rosari. 134pp. In Portuguese)

In 355 liberally illustrated pages, this book collects materials on methods for design and planning under development at the Institute of Design for several decades, including examples from projects in product and systems design and design for services in both private and public sectors.

Structured Planning is a "kit of tools" covering phases of advanced planning from the earliest project definition activity to the evaluation of concepts. Six phases are covered in the book: Project Definition, Action Analysis, Structuring, Synthesis, Communication and Evaluation. Forms used in capturing issues, insights and ideas are covered in detail with examples from a variety of projects. Theory and algorithms for three computer programs used with Structuring (RELATN and VTCON) and Evaluation (SYSEVAL) are given, along with examples showing how the algorithms work. The book is used as the text for the course "Systems and Systematic Design" taught in the Institute of Design’s masters and doctoral design and planning programs.

A limited quantity of this book are available for US$35 plus shipping, by direct mail-order from the Institute of Design. To order, please visit https://payment.iit.edu/item.php?item=377, or call 312-595-4900.

Taeho Wang (MDes 08) and Min-Joong Kim (MDes 09) have won second place in the Microsoft/IDSA Next-Gen PC Design Competition, for WITHUS, a computer helping preschool children shape values and human relationships by encouraging them to play and learn through multi-user interactions.

Michael Abramson (Photo '77) had his work showcased in a cover-story Portfolio section of the Chicago Trib Magazine. Download article (PDF , 620.23KB)

In the story "It's Not Business As Usual", Metropolis Magazine's May issue writes about design schools that are "recalibrating to teach the principles of commerce". One case study from Stanford's D.school and one from ID (More Than Bikes, 2006) are profiled in depth. Download article (PDF , 1.40MB)

Professor Kumar's sponsored project with T-Mobile is covered in an article on "Innovative Cellphones" and what companies are doing to stay ahead of the curve.

ID's founder headlines a new exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, "Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945," now through May 4, 2008.