Stories from the Avant-Garde

CVAD Alumni & Friends,

The first issue of our new online newsletter, Stories from the Avant-Garde will be emailed this afternoon. I hope you have already subscribed to receive this exciting newsletter, but if you haven’t there is still time.

We hope this newsletter will allow you to keep up with events happening at CVAD with our alumni, current students and faculty. We welcome your story ideas and any life events that we might be able to use including: birth announcements, marriage announcements, new jobs and new shows in which you are participating. Please feel free to email me with anything that you think might be of interest to your fellow CVAD alumni.

If you would like to receive this monthly newsletter, please click on this link to subscribe. This is the only way that we can include you in this fun and informative newsletter. Please let me know if you have any questions and please send me your news!

Danish Design Research

The Danish Design School is a part of the national Center for Design Research. The Center coordinates and initiates research programs at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Aarhus School of Architecture, Designskolen Kolding and The Danish Design School. The Center's research into design theory and methods aims to construct scientific methods of design analysis. In its recent Research Strategy Plan, the School outlines plans for increasing its status as a research institution of Danish higher education. The report offers insight into one approach to the structure and implementation of integrated, multifaceted research initiatives.

Rethinking Design

According to its creators David Carlson and Brent Richards, "The David Report covers the intersection of design, culture and business life with a creative and humanistic approach. By challenging conventional thinking we are always trying to make a difference." David Carlson is a Swedish designer with over twenty years practice experience. Brent Richards is a Chartered Architect and designer, and Director of the Design Laboratory at Saint Martins College University of the Arts, London. In this recent issue of the report, the two examine what they believe is a crisis for design: design contamination or "a design pandemic of gibberish and solutions for the one, and not the many", and agitate for a war against "designerism" or the aesthetic proliferation of unsustainable products, processes and environments. The report is available for free on David's weblog.

Design Responsibility: A Systematic Review

Whenever the topic of design responsibility comes up, few in the profession argue that less is better than more. But on what foundation does this affirmation stand? That is, if it is true that designers hold that they are somehow responsible to others, what reasons can can they offer to justify this position? And, are their reasons reasonable? The foundations upon which arguments for design responsibility are diverse and sometimes at odds. In this brief diagrammatic overview, originally presented at the 2010 CEPHAD Conference in Copenhagen, three such foundations and some of their respective consequences are considered.

Design & Society Project

RSA Design & Society Project is the weblog of Emily Campbell, the RSA’s Director of Design at www.theRSA.org. The RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. For over 250 years, the RSA has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. The Society's Design and Society project urges designers to demonstrate how the insights and processes of design can increase the resourcefulness of people and communities.

Promoting Significant Discussions About Design, Inside and Outside of the Profession

Design Philosophy Papers is an online peer-reviewed journal and invaluable resource for design researchers and scholars. It "comes with a passion to communicate, share and argue for a much greater recognition of importance of design as a force in the contemporary world. DPP aims to increase understanding of the significance of design by the wider intellectual community as well as by designers, and to raise the level of international debate about design." – DPP. Editors Anne-Marie Willis, Tony Fry and Abby Mellick Lopes, along with an international editorial advisory board, bring a discerning eye for rigorous and well articulated scholarship as well as a clear focus on the responsibility design has for creating sustainable, and sustaining futures.

GOOD. A resource for activist designers

Self described "as a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward", the GOOD blog tackles such diverse topics as global climate change and arms sales, health care and car ownership, biodegradable toilets and inequality. This cacophony of issues is united by a overarching desire to affect positive social, political, environmental and economic change by raising awareness, encouraging action and suggesting that design thinking is a viable means to address important concerns. The site is a valuable resource for those looking for a fast on-ramp to hot button issues across multiple dimensions.