NSCAD Interdisciplinary Design
5163 Duke St. Halifax, NS, Canada

Winter 2021 Course: BIO-SLOGANING AS INSPIRED ARTEFACT ACTIVISM DSGN-3161-OL1 / Bio-Inspired Artefact Instructor: Christopher Mark Kaltenbach, PhD... COURSE CONTENT: This is the inaugural course in a new stream of design research for the Kaltenbach lab at NSCAD University. It seeks to define a research domain centered on experimental design strategies to advance environmental causes. The students’ work in this course will play a key role in shaping future trajectories of this research. This semester we will focus on the slogan as an act of bio-political and design intervention. In both the creation of a slogan, and the graphic articulation of it, we can, as designers and citizens, provide an important voice to civic persuasion. The recent global political events that have shaped public discourse have brought to the foreground the necessity to explore graphic, symbolic public engagement and design’s role in shaping it; the black lives matter slogan has been the clearest example. However, it is politics in general that we see design taking an ever-larger role in shaping its aesthetic expression. Barack Obama’s political campaign of 2008 provided one of the first graphic products (designed by Sol Sender of Mode Project) to reveal the potential of this burgeoning field of design work. This online course will analyze these and other related trends that are situated within the advancement of environmental causes, both regionally and globally. In the end, the student will seek to influence the agenda of a current cause related to some aspect of advocacy through an exceptionally crafted, slogan-based, design intervention, using the body, digital marketing and the artefact as mediums of dissemination. Image: Course Poster, courtesy of Kaltenbach

Winter 2021 Course: DEATH AND THE EMBODIMENT CRISIS DSGN-3325-OL1 / Design for Cultural Revitalization... Instructors: Emerald Wise and D’Arcy Newberry-Dupe, Instructors and PhD candidates in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at The University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. (Under the leadership of Professor Sue Anne Ware, Head of School and Dean of Built Environment.) Course Overview: Now more than ever we require a revitalization of our cultural practices around death and dying, and a consideration of the role design may take in this revitalization. Over the last twelve months countries across the globe have experienced a jarring and devastating pandemic, which has resulted in the deaths of 1.69 million worldwide. COVID-19 has shifted the way in which death is experienced on all fronts. For so many, it has been swift, unexpected and isolating. The dead are unable to be mourned by their loved ones, and their passing and burial devoid of ritual or ceremony. This online course draws on social and spatial mapping to re-frame and revitalize cultural practice around death. It will be through this dynamic mapping, composing and analysis of places, spaces, graphics, symbols and social practices that shape death culture in Halifax and its environments, that students will interrogate and dismantle the existing set of motions that are played out within current mortuary practices across the city. Ultimately, the course seeks to create design propositions at a variety of scales, from objects and spaces, to graphic representations that address death and embodiment, and accommodate memorialization. In so doing, alternative models of practice will be created to alleviate taboos around the body, decay and mortality. Image: Course Poster, courtesy of Wise + Newberry-Dupe

Congratulations Duane Jones (BDes 2004)!

WHAT IS INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN? More than ever, design is having to respond to client briefs with a broader application of design outcomes than those that are initially expected by a client; across print, web, product and/or the built environment. As a NSCAD student in the Interdisciplinary Design degree program, one is preparing to understand how a concept can manifest itself in various forms. It is the role of our courses to engage the student in this mode of thinking and... designing. While all designers, including Interdisciplinary Designers, come with their own strengths, weaknesses, and of course specialization, an Interdisciplinary Designer embraces this condition an empowerment for locating other designers who can bring a broader palette of skill to a project. It is true that a student may develop their own area of strength (specialization) and the courses will assist and encourage a student in this direction, however the student must strive to be inquisitive. They must learn from and about other disciplines, not in the hopes of becoming an expert in those disciplines but to begin to understand the questions required to respectfully and dynamically engage with a wide range of creative practitioners and, hopefully, for future collaborations. In the end, it is the expectation that the student will have begun to develop the design and intellectual skills, and confidence to understand how to bring added value to a client's brief.

Welcome to NSCAD Dr. Leah Decter!

Important information for ALL students.

This week marks the final week of the Fall 2020 term at NSCAD University. One of the unexpected benefits of having to conduct courses online due to provincial COVID 19 restrictions is that guest critics can be invited from around the world. In the third year, undergraduate design studio course INSECTUM (DSGN 3021), under the instruction of Christopher Mark Kaltenbach, guest critics from Vancouver Island, Melbourne, Australia, New York City, and Tokyo, Japan will be participat...ing in three days of final presentations: Patrick Foster, graphic designer and professor in the Graphic Design department at Vancouver Island University, in British Columbia. Foster is a former graduate of NSCAD’s Master of Design program. Dr. Sand Helsel, architect and professor emeritus in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Fiona Raby, partner in the design studio Dunne & Raby (http://dunneandraby.co.uk), and professor of Design and Social Inquiry at The New School, Co-Director of the Designed Realities Lab, and a GIDEST Fellow. Manuel Tardits, partner in the architecture firm Mikan (http://mikan.co.jp), and professor of Architecture at Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan.

Nova Scotia update on COVID-19 November 27, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJGsrRz1dI

New restrictions across Nova Scotia as of this Thursday. https://www.cbc.ca//stephen-mcneil-dr-strang-covid-19-news

UPCOMING EVENT: next Monday, November 16 Former NSCAD Design graduate Lee Yuen-Rapati (BDes 2013) will give a presentation on ZOOM, Monday, November 16 at 1:30pm Atlantic Standard Time (AST). ZOOM link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81210066733 Titled Semiotics: A Crash Course, Yuen-Rapati’s presentation is organized in association with Associate Professor May Chung’s Typography course, DSGN 2505. Yuen-Rapati will provide an introduction to the history and terminology of semi...otics, and how it applies to typography and design in general. Yuen-Rapati specializes in illustration, type design, and industrial design. Since graduating from NSCAD, he has gone on to earn a Masters degree in typeface design from the University of Reading in the U.K. https://watchtype.net For more information about this lecture, please contact Associate Professor May Chung: [email protected]

Ten years ago yesterday Christopher Mark Kaltenbach, along with his design practice, actionfindcopypaste launched their window display design for Aigle’s Canada flagship store in Halifax, Nova Scotia.http://actionfcv.com

NSCAD’s Division of Design would like to welcome all students to the Fall 2020 term. While we all would love to be filling our campuses’ classrooms and workspaces with our usual teaching and learning experiences, the faculty are very much looking forward to getting back to work with all of you within our new virtual course environments. Now more than ever, lines of communication between all of us need to be accessed whenever necessary. As Chair of the Division, I can be rea...ched at [email protected]; please email me anytime. If your query requires a lengthy reply, I would prefer meeting you on Microsoft Teams or Zoom. If you would like to meet with me during my online office hours, I am available this semester, Fridays 9:00 to 13:00. Please email me with a time you would like to meet and indicate what online application you would like to use. Yesterday, as I was preparing for the first class of Design Studio 3 (DSGN 3021), I was struck by how our workspaces are more important than ever, and yet no one ever sees them; in this photo I am working on that course If you would like to share a photo of your workspace, please include it in the comments of this post. In the photo, if you are working on a project/assignment for a particular course, tell us which course it is. While we may never see you working away in your space, we can at least imagine you hard at work there. We wish all of you a successful semester. Dr. Christopher Mark Kaltenbach Chair, Division of Design

Last winter term (2020), the Division of Design’s course, Design Studio 4 (DSGN3521) / Designing the Masterclass Experience, taught by Christel Leblanc, provided students with the opportunity to rebrand an entrepreneurial training company, along with reenvisioning the design of the company’s training events. Over the 14-week semester students worked with Halifax-based Soul Tribe, which offers workshops called Masterclass that take place across Canada. Thanks to Leblanc’s ...position with this companyin charge of visual designstudents had direct access to its leadership team. In the end, Soul Tribe purchased Ly Pham's (BDes 2021) identity design concept, and marking material from Laura Publicover (BDes 2021); all final deliverables were developed with their colleagues in the course. For a complete narrative overview of this course, please visit LeBlanc’s blog, Forest Friend: https://forestfriend.ca//designing-masterclass-experienc/ For more information about Soultribe: https://www.soultribe.live

An employment opportunity with Halifax's Discovery Centre: Please contact Linda Laurence, Director of Human Resources at 902-817-2499 for more information.

Eight-week student employment opportunity with the Dartmouth community cultural centre, Alderney Landing.

https://globalnews.ca//nscad-interim-president-sarah-mcki/

UPCOMING EVENT: this Wednesday, November 18 Melissa Bui, a designer based in Edmonton, will give an online presentation Wednesday, November 19 at 10am Atlantic Standard Time (AST). Link: https://smart.newrow.com/#/room/rwh-627 Password: intercultural... Titled, Inclusion by Design, Bui will share her experiences working on collaborative, community projects in Canada, Ghana and Vietnam. https://www.melissabuidesign.com/ This presentation is organized in conjunction with the Division of Design course, Intercultural Communication and Design (DSGN4908), being taught this semester by Dr. Leslie Obol.

Did you know #NSCAD has multiple awards, bursaries and scholarships available for new and returning students? This impressive list includes the Ben Patterson Me...morial Scholarship! Performing and visual artist Benjamin Ben Patterson (1934-2016) was a founding member of Fluxus’ participatory, do-it-yourself, anti-commercialist avant-garde network. While many Fluxus artists employed conceptual techniques borrowed from music, Patterson’s fusion of art and music was informed by his background as a classically trained double-bassist. The Ben Patterson Memorial Scholarship was established to support African Nova Scotian students pursuing full-time study toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts. https://nscad.ca//schol/awards-bursaries-and-scholarships/ #IamNSCAD #StudyWithUs