Department Blog
Department news, events, and snapshots of student life at SVA in New York City.
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Orator: A Karaoke Platform for Public Speaking
Fear of public speaking is often cited as the most common phobia, outranking even the fear of death. As Jerry Seinfeld famously quipped, “That means that the average person at a funeral would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy!” At the same time, the ability to express oneself clearly and confidently in group settings is highly valued and admired. To confront this dilemma, designer Julia Lindpaintner created an application called Orator: karaoke for public speaking. Conceived as a way to make the art of oration accessible and entertaining, Orator gives people the opportunity to improve their own speaking by imitating great rhetoricians of the past and present.
Photos From Our 2016 Design:Match Job Fair!
Last Friday, the MFA Products of Design department held its third annual Design:Match Job Fair event, where global and local firms and organizations met with students, shared work, and discussed employment, funding, and entrepreneurship! Here's a list of the attendees: 10xBETA, Aruliden, Arup Foresight, The Barbarian Group, Big Spaceship, BREAKFAST, Collins, Common Cents Labs, ECCO, ESI Design, Etsy, Fahrenheit 212, Fjord, frog, Google Creative Lab, Google Research, Huge, IBM Design, IDEO, IDEO.org, Interbrand, ION Design, Johnson & Johnson, Kickstarter, Lippincott, littlebits, Local Projects, Luminary Labs, Method, Normative, Pensa, PepsiCo Design & Innovation, RED ANTLER, R/GA, Sid Lee, Sunny Bates, SYPartners, UNICEF Innovation, ustwo, Veterans Affairs, ?What If!, Yeh Ideology.
Reimagining the Business Model Canvas
In the past few years, Alexander Osterwalder’s (and co-authors’) Business Model Canvas has become a ubiquitous tool among product designers, entrepreneurs, and business strategists of all stripes. As part of a class at SVA’s Products of Design called “Business Structures”—a course about business itself as a language and a design medium—we experimented with reimagining the canvas.
MoMA Partnered Project #2 Kickoff: Rare & Well Done
MoMA is back for a second season! Gabrielle Zola (Business Development Manager, MoMA Retail), and Chay Costello (Associate Director of Merchandising at MoMA) came to the MFA Products of Design department last week to kick off the second partnered project with the Museum of Modern Art—this time around the topic of food. Students can't wait to...well, dig in to the project, and we are grateful that MoMA is has chosen to partner with the departmen. This time, students who will be creating products for MoMA's wholesale catalog!
MASTERS THESIS: Enough is the New More: Reframing Scarcity to Feel Like Abundance, by Steve Hamilton
Steve Hamilton’s master’s thesis, Enough is the New More: Reframing Scarcity to Feel Like Abundance, began with a manifesto of dialectics, eschewing our persistently growth-based metric for success, rejecting the last several centuries of western economic culture that led to the consumerization of happiness in the United States, and offering a more humane and sustainable alternative. His early research centered around a plethora of “wicked problems”—including those pertaining to vastly embedded systemic structures such as energy, materials, transportation, and the design of our cities—and culminated in a set of radical artifacts that speculate on an alternative future.
MASTERS THESIS: Gowanus Outdoors Club: A Field Guide to Soliphilia, by Julia Plevin
Design strategist and storyteller Julia Plevin did not realize how much of an effect the environment had on her wellbeing before she moved to New York City to attend the Products of Design program and found herself yearning for nature. After a harsh New York City winter left her depressed and out of whack, she realized that she suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). And she realized she was not alone. According to the National Institute of Health, 6% of the U.S. population suffers from seasonal affective disorder and 14% of the U.S. population suffers from winter blues. These numbers are even larger if you consider many Americans live in places like California or Florida that do not have long, cold winters.
MASTERS THESIS: "Disclosional": Creating Conversation Around, In, and Outside HIV, by Heath Wagoner
Heath Wagoner’s master’s thesis, Disclosional: Creating Conversation Around, In, and Outside HIV, centers around HIV and the role of conversation. Acknowledging that oftentimes “a conversation is simply not enough,” Heath argues that in the case of HIV, it is imperative. Disclosional is aimed at making communicating about HIV status easier, and to remove its stigma. Heath’s thesis work began with him volunteering at the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center (LESHRC) in New York, and ended with a participatory and immersive exhibition and an educational app.
MASTERS THESIS: Uplift: Happiness & Communication in the Context of Cancer, by Berk Ilhan
Berk Ilhan’s master’s thesis, Uplift, addresses the quality of life of cancer patients—identifying opportunities that cultivate joy and happiness, and strengthening the support group around the patient. Based on his hypothesis that, through design, joy and humor can positively change most experiences—and inspired by the revolutionary physician Hunter Doherty (popularly known as “Patch Adams”), advocate of humor, fun, and love in healthcare—Berk’s work re-imagines hospital and outpatient experiences beyond conventional boundaries.
MASTERS THESIS: It's Chinese To Me, by Lusha Huang
Lusha Huang’s master’s thesis, It’s Chinese to me: Luck and Cultural Empathy, explores the disconnect between Chinese an American culture. As a Chinese student in an international design department, Lusha enthusiastically took on the role of messenger—eager to share her country’s tradition and philosophy with others. Her over-arching goal is to build a cultural bridge, fostering understanding between Americans and Chinese. Central to her thesis is the theme of luck, which dates back to ancient China and has always been extremely important to Chinese culture.