Design

Recently gifted works to the Manetti Shrem Museum from dedicated art lovers and philanthropists Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem are the focus on a new exhibition curated and designed by UC Davis students.

“Guardians: Spirits of Protection,” a poignant exploration of the creative relationship between tragedy and design created by design professor emerita Ann Savageau, was first premiered at the UC Davis Design Museum in fall 2021. In fall 2024 “Guardians” will be presented by the  University of Michigan Residential College Art Gallery Aug. 26 through Nov. 2.

Residents and firefighters from the town of Tomales, CA, came together on June 8 to play a community safety-inspired board game created by Associate Professor Thomas Maiorana. In the game board, “Tomales Resilience,” an experimental game that simulates a real-life wildfire evacuation, the community members play as themselves as a disaster situation arises around them.  

Maiorana created the game with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz. The National Science Foundation funded the project.

Professor Timothy McNeil is co-chairing the next Exhibition + Experience Design conference organized by the Society of Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) held in Washington, D.C. June 20-21, 2024. 

“The Great Botanic Panic” took place on June 1st and engaged 28 teams of riders from the Davis, Sacramento, and Bay Area communities. 

UC Davis design students in DES187 Narrative Environments taught by Professor Tim McNeil conceptualized, planned, designed, and implemented 9 activity stations around the city. Each station was one of the clues on the hunt and celebrated plants that existed in the Mesozoic Era.

Filmmakers and professors Glenda Drew (of Design) and Jesse Drew (of Cinema and Digital Media) have completed a project decades in the making — a documentary about the roots of American Country Music titled Open Country.

Associate Professor Beth Ferguson will give two upcoming talks centering on her recent work on climate adaptation and sustainable mobility at the UC Santa Cruz and a WTS Advancing Women Advancing Transportation event in Sacramento.

Congratulations to MycoTextile Futures for their 3rd place award (in the research category) in the Future is Fungi global competition hosted by a European consortium aiming to promote research and start-ups using fungi to solve major environmental challenges. The team includes UC Davis Design Lecturer Alejandra Ruiz, Design faculty Christina Cogdell, and Engineering Professor Valeria La Saponara. There were 260 ideas from 70 countries (and the UC Davis team was th

The online publication Blooloop named Professor Tim McNeil among the top 50 museum influencers for 2023. McNeil recently published The Exhibition and Experience Design Handbook, and also was the principal designer of the recent exhibition, “Deborah Butterfield: P.S.

Professor Emeritus Gyöngy Laky published a book in 2022 titled Gyöngy Laky: Screwing with Order. Assembled Art, Actions and Creative Practice, which provides insight into her sustainable art, philosophy and innovations.

Professors Jae Yong Suk and Michael Siminovitch—through the California Lighting Technology Center and the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis have—received $200k jointly from Toyota Boshoku America and Seoul Semiconductor to investigate the potential mitigating effects of discrete color in light on human mood and stress. The research is now in its second phase.

Professors Jae Yong Suk and Michael Siminovitch at the California Lighting Technology Center received $100K in funding from Seoul Semiconductor—one of the largest LED manufacturers in the world—to support the research of full-spectrum LEDs for human-centric lighting. Full-spectrum LEDs provide a visible light spectrum similar to natural light.

The 2023 de Young Open, the second triennial of the juried community art exhibition, features submissions by artists from the Bay Area including the work of lecturer Rose Kelly.

Recent alumna Sarah Sy (B.A., design and cinema and digital media, ‘23) has received a scholarship through The Gotham EDU Film and Media Career Development Program. The six-week summer program covers development, pitching, marketing, distribution, and more. Sy’s funding is supported through The Questlove iHeart Scholarship.

Recently Sy’s film “Customer Service” won several awards at Film Fest at UC Davis.

“Nicrocosms: Studies on Scavenging and Renewal,” a group show sponsored by the Bilinski Fellowship, features the work of design graduate students Ofelia Viloche Pulido and Alejandra Ruiz Suárez.