Educator

In 2009, I edited and designed a book called Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field (Princeton Architectural Press). This book presents primary texts from important historical and contemporary design thinkers. I continue to build upon design history and theory as I work at Miami University to pragmatically equip my students for a rapidly changing, technologically-driven world. I see professional/cultural shifts all around and want my students to engage fully in the opportunities that emerge.

Traditional top-down systems are transforming into distributed participatory tools of creation like Flickr, Threadless, Lulu, and Facebook. I’m fascinated by the designer’s place within this new paradigm. As more and more citizens are propelled by technology into the production of content and form, the traditional professional practice of graphic design must expand to consider forms of co-creation.

I inspire collaboration and co-creation in many ways in my classes. I’ve found formats like blogs hone such skills in students, encouraging them to evaluate peer work, participate more fully in group projects, share resources and take more responsibility for their education. In addition I assign large-scale collaborative projects within my classroom and cross-institutional projects between my classes and design studios at other institutions like The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). In such projects students co-create work using online resources like Flickr and Googledocs. They begin to rethink design as an open-ended system rather than a finished, polished product.

While encouraging co-creative projects in my classes, I co-authored a new book  for Princeton Architectural Press called Participate: Designing with User-Generated Content (Helen Armstrong and Zvezdana Stojmirovic, 2011).