Friends,
Many will know that Ken our convenor has fled Europe until next week,
and as you may have guessed I was impersonating him yesterday in
sending the introduction for Michael Clark on Ken's behalf. I am
continuing the impersonation today in introducing our commentators for
this final session.
This is not quite the same order as was announced originally, but I
will follow up in a couple of days with a response which will include
some summary comments on the debate as a whole.
Ken will I am sure finally wrap up the debate in his own special way
when he returns next week.
Enjoy!
David Durling
---
Susan Hagan is well known to the readers of PhD-Design as the
author of elegant and often entertaining notes. She was invited
to join us as a doctoral student. As it turns out, this
invitation was a good choice and a bad one. It was good because
Susan is an elegant contributor to our list. It was bad because
she is no longer a doctoral student.
Last week, Susan Hagan defended her dissertation at Carnegie
Mellon University. Today, she joins us as Dr. Hagan.
Following a cum laude BFA at Indiana University of Pennsylvania,
Susan took her MDes at Carnegie Mellon where she went on to a
PhD in rhetoric.
Her doctoral research involved developing a framework for
communication design that uncovers levels of collaboration
between visual and verbal concepts on the page. Within that
framework, she explores a high level of collaboration in which
both visual and verbal elements provide essential meaning to
communicate new knowledge.
Dr. Hagan's research interest continues in related areas. She
studies how visual and verbal concepts work together to
communicate meaning. She explores situations in which meaning
collaboration may be an effective means of persuasion. Most
interesting for us, she is developing better ways to teach the
fundamentals of visual design to non-designers.
I cannot recall a conference speaker who actually defended her
dissertation and completed her PhD while the conference was in
session. Admittedly, this is more likely during a month-long
on-line conference, but it must be some kind of first. At the
very least, it is a first here on PhD-Design.
Dr. Hagan has developed a conceptual framework of six
fundamental kinds of visual/verbal collaboration which she calls
types of play as a synonym for collaboration. The types are
Identity Play, Parallel Play, Sequenced Play, Echoing Interplay,
Contradicting Interplay, and Redefining Interplay. Each of these
collaborative types is an inventional resource that serves
specific rhetorical situations. Theories of visual/verbal
composition need to account for all of these types of
collaboration. Her dissertation is a discussion of these
theories.
I look forward to reading the dissertation!
Chris Heape is the literal embodiment of all of our list themes.
He was educated at Falmouth School of Art in the UK where he
graduated with an honors BA in painting and art history. Chris
moved to Denmark, where he has lived for the past 26 years. He
went from painting to furniture design and production, and he
has worked in graphic design. He also earned an MA in Industrial
Design from DesignSkolen Kolding in Denmark.
In Denmark, Chris had his own design firm for many years until
he took up an 18 month tenure at the User Centered Design group
of Danfoss a/s in 1999. At Danfoss, Chris was introduced to a
combination of action research and design practice that focused
on innovative ways to involve users and other company players in
the ongoing negotiation and generation of ideas and solutions
for design tasks.
Since September 2002, Chris has held a position as senior
researcher at the Mads Clausen Institute for Product Innovation,
University of Southern Denmark. Also a doctoral candidate at
SDU, Chris has been actively involved with design research,
principally in the area of design learning.
I first met Chris in Oslo five years ago for a delightful
evening of conversation. I always learn a lot from Chris Heape.
He is a reflective practitioner of the studio arts and a
sophisticated researcher. As of next month, Chris will don a new
hat as visiting assistant professor of design in the new
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham,
Massachusetts.
M P Ranjan is professor of industrial design at the National
Institute of Design in Ahmedabad India where he has innovated
design courses in geometry, drawing, design methodology and
design management.
During a professional career in design that began in 1972, Prof.
Ranjan has designed a large range of toys, furniture, products,
interiors, and exhibitions for clients in industry and
government. He has also been a design consultant to various
government agencies, advising on design and setting design
training and design management systems.
Ranjan has approached technology from several levels - and on
several scales. As head of computer activities and chair of
information technology at NID, he was responsible for
integrating IT solutions for all activities at the Institute
from 1991 to 2002. He is now Head of NIDs Centre for Bamboo
Initiatives, developing one of the world's oldest technologies
for a critical area of development in India's Tenth Plan period.
Prof. Ranjan has done extensive research on handicrafts in India
particularly on bamboo crafts. In 1986, an influential book was
published featuring this work. He has also been an active writer
on design and crafts. Ranjan's contributions to curriculum
review and development have transformed design education
programs at the National Institute of Design, and he set up the
Accessory Design Program at the National Institute of Fashion
Technology (NIFT), in New Delhi and the new Institute of Crafts
(Design, Technology, and Management) at Jaipur.
Prof. Ranjan has been a consultant to the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) conceiving and developing a vision
for the National Bamboo Development Project. His report titled
"From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a sustainable Human
Development Resource for India" was a major initiative of the
UNDP in India between 1999 and 2002. The project vision included
the wide spread cultivation of bamboo linked to the development
of new knowledge resources for using bamboo and adding value at
all stages. Design was the primary discipline guiding the
implementation of this vision.
Members of PhD-Design know Ranjan as the author of many
thoughtful posts and articles that combine historical
understanding, scientific knowledge, and reflective practice.
Al Selvin is a working designer in the high tech end of design.
He is Director of the External Portals and eLearning group for
Verizon's Customer Management Systems-Wholesale organization, a
part of the Verizon Information Technology Group.
Al earned a BA in film and video studies at the University of
Michigan and an MA in communication arts at the University of
Wisconsin. He worked as an independent user interface and
technical writing consultant for firms in New York, Washington,
and St. Louis. Later, he led web design and software development
teams at Verizon, Bell Atlantic, and NYNEX Science and
Technology.
Al is the orginal developer and architect of the Compendium
software and methodology which is now being developed at KMi.
For the last ten years, Al facilitated design, strategy,
analysis and modeling sessions using Compendium for hundreds of
groups in industry, academic, community, and non-profit
settings. Al has published articles on Compendium and related
issues in a number of journals and conference papers. For a list
of these publications, please see
http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/library/papers.htm
If you wish to learn more about Compendium, please see
http://www.compendiuminstitute.org
Today, Al is both a manager and a scholar. He is pursuing a PhD
at the Knowledge Media Institute, Open University UK (KMi). His
main research interests are in aesthetic mediation,
collaborative hypermedia, participatory design, and sensemaking
support, especially for groups in complex or difficult
situations.
Al's home page at OU is
kmi.open.ac.uk/people/selvin/
Welcome, Susan! Welcome, Chris! Wecome, Ranjan! Welcome, Al!
-- Ken Friedman
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