Design

Kaylani J. McCard was awarded the 2021 Savageau Award for a Master of Fine Arts design student on June 10 during a virtual opening celebration of the annual Arts and Humanities Graduate Exhibition at UC Davis. The show is accessible through the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art website until Sept. 6.

Due to technical difficulties, the May 20 Film Fest @ UC Davis program has been rescheduled for May 27 at 7 p.m. PDT, with a Q&A and awards presentation to follow.  

The festival features short films of eight minutes or less in length, submitted by UC Davis students and recent graduates. Submissions include a variety of genres, from animation to live action to documentary to experimental. This year the selection committee has also accepted submissions of original screenplays of eight pages or less. 

Public Scholarship and Engagement recently announced their 2021 Community Engaged Learning Faculty Fellows. Among the recipients are Design faculty members Assistant Professor Beth Ferguson and Assistant Professor Thomas Maiorana. 

Professor Beth Ferguson has been appointed to a two-year term to the Women in Design Advisory Council, the group supporting the Women in Design Committee of the national organization Industrial Designers Association of America (IDSA).

Over ten years ago, Adele Zhang, lecturer in design and curator/manager of the Jo Ann C. Stabb Design Collection, began a unique collaboration with UC Davis Health’s Cardiovascular Medicine Program in which the power of design brought focus on health education and social consciousness.

The UC Davis Red Dress Collection, the first interdisciplinary partnership between UC Davis Health and the Department of Design, spotlights the red dress which has become a national symbol for encouraging women to reduce their risks of heart disease. 

Professor Beth Ferguson recently received a VentureWell Faculty Grant in recognition of their commitment to inclusive support of students who are creating innovations for positive social and environmental impact. This funding will support a new Industrial Design course series that will create an inviting and supportive atmosphere for underrepresented engineering and design stu

Design alum Adam Flint Taylor (M.F.A., design, ‘19) has work featured in a current exhibition at the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA) now through March 13. The museum is located on the campus of Southern Utah University (SUU) in Cedar City. 

Taylor’s “Manifesto for Voting Design” is included in the 2021 Art & Design Faculty Exhibition. Taylor is assistant professor of graphic design at SUU. 

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Katia Vega who has received an Athena Award from Women in Tech Initiative at UC. Vega has been recognized for her achievements in the Early Career category. 

The awards will be presented on March 12, 2021, during the annual  Women in Tech Symposium, which will focus on “The New Era in Human-Computer Interaction.” 

Congratulations to Professor Tom Maiorana  who has been awarded a Stage 1 Civic Innovation Challenge grant from the National Science Foundation.  The Civic Innovation Challenge is a research and action competition that aims to fund ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects that have the potential for scalable, sustainable, and transferable impact on community-identified priorities.

Alumna Milan Finnie just completed a mural project commemorating George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. Commissioned by the Imperial Beach People’s Alliance, her creation is a six-wall mural on Palm Avenue that the Alliance believes will represent anti-racism in Imperial Beach. The illustration features a ring of statistics that shows what they said is the disproportionate rate of Black people killed by police in America.

Professor Javier Arbona was recently interviewed in the LA Times about the present and future meaning of public sculpture. In the December 13 op-ed “The most controversial thing about Gov. Pete Wilson’s statue is its dull irrelevance,” columnist Gustavo Arellano takes a look at the Wilson monument in San Diego and asks why it is, or isn’t, controversial.

In anticipation of the uncertainty of travel and other possible matters, also to serve the students who cannot travel outside of the country for any reasons in a long run, the campus Global Learning Hub and Career Center developed “Global Virtual Internships” parallel to traditional summer abroad programs. 

This CALL TO ACTION aims to transform everyday places into sites of engagement by unleashing the skills of museum practitioners into the world around us.

Alumnus J.R. Campbell (B.S., environmental design, ‘94; M.F.A, textile arts and costume design, ‘96) is the executive director of the Design Innovation Initiative at Kent State University in Ohio. In his role, Campbell will oversee the online launch of the university’s new Design Innovation Hub on Nov. 12 at 11 a.m. (EST). 

Alumna Jenna Nelson (Pyörälä) (MFA, design, ‘19) has created Luova Flow with a mission to inspire people worldwide with ornamental prints, beautiful illustrations and quality products. The brand’s visual style is influenced by delicate natural elements and colorful urban and rural landscapes.