The Ecosystem of Design

(DSN 200)

The explosion of interest in “design” in recent years is nothing short of phenomenal, but few people seem to know what design really is, and fewer still appreciate what it means to be a designer. In this quarter-long lecture series we will turn to some of the world’s greatest experts for help. Rest assured, designers can still be found hunched over drafting tables, peering into computer displays, and puttering around in model shops. But they can also be found conducting ethnographic research in Ethiopia, occupying executive suites in Silicon Valley, curating exhibitions in New York, and probing the limits of new and future technologies. Together these varieties of professional practice constitute “The Ecosystem of Design.”

This course will begin with a presentation by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the world’s largest and most famous design consultancy, on how designers think. Other presenters include Sam Lucente, vicepresident of corporate design at Hewlett-Packard, the legendary Paola Antonelli, curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, and also the publisher and editor-in-chief of Dwell magazine, which has done so much to bring the real world of design to the American public. We will hear from other distinguished thinkers representing the designer as developer, the designer as consultant, the designer as visionary, and the designer as educator. Since design is now far too important to be left to designers alone, the course will conclude with a hands-on workshop conducted by faculty from Stanford’s famed “d.school,” in which we will turn the entire class into designers. You will never see the world in quite the same way again. Please join us for what promises to be an unforgettable and unrepeatable immersion into The Ecosystem of Design.

Barry Katz, Professor of Design, California College of the Arts

Barry Katz lectures internationally on topics related to contemporary design and his writings have appeared in numerous scholarly, professional, and popular publications. He is the author, most recently, of Tectonic Shift: The Unstable History of Silicon Valley Design (MIT Press, forthcoming).