Innovations in Design

How can understanding design’s past better prepare us for its future? New technological and social practices are changing the landscape of design, offering new possibilities and challenges for designers to work through. By reflecting on where we have been, we become better situated in our current conditions, and more prepared to face future dilemmas. This course is for emerging designers interested in gaining greater insight and context into the diverse fields of industrial, communication, and interaction design. You will have opportunities to reflect on the history of design and its impact on today’s world, as well as imagining the possible futures of design. Through presentations, class workshops and research projects, you will learn about methods and technologies used within the practice of design and gain confidence in understanding what roles designers will need to take to help shape our futures. Through the successful completion of the course, students will be able to: 1. Discover social, cultural, political and technological events from history that have lead to our current design landscape 2. Express the relationship between humans and technology within the design profession 3. Explore the latest technologies and methods used by designers in the field 4. Identify different skills that are applicable to the practice of design 5. Describe possible relationships between design, emerging technologies and socially impactful practices 6. Communicate how design can be used to imagine and shape the future