venice stormy night

Interaction design is the design of the interaction between people and devices, systems or services. This interaction usually involves the ‘new technologies’ of computing and communications. But interaction design remains a creative activity – like architectural, graphic or product design. And it concerns the social value and cultural meaning of what is designed, as well as its functional efficiency and aesthetic appeal.

This site, run by Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor, mostly concerns their Interaction Design (IxD) programme in the graduate degree in Visual and Multimedia Communication Design at IUAV University of Venice, Italy.

 

  RECENT

IUAV invited to the Festival of Creativity Florence

Making Ideas Happen, in collaboration with H-Farm, celebrated the way innovative ideas from the university can be brought into the world. Nicola Plaisant designed the installation, Francesco Fraioli and Luca de Rosso demonstrated Thounds and Otto. IUAV Ixd showreel by Silvia Bosocolo, Erika Rossi and Marco Righetto.

Summer internships coming to a close

Second-year students are returning after their internships in Italy and abroad. Despite the recession and difficult times for design studios, students were accepted at IDEO in San Francisco, Prospect Design in London, Frog Design in Milan and Fabrica, Treviso. We look forward to hearing about their experiences.

From thesis project to founding a company in a year

Thounds, a social software site for collaborative musical composition was the thesis project of Francesco Fraioli. Thounds Inc, based in Seattle and designed for a world-wide audience, has been developed over the past year in H-Farm, the hi-tech incubator near Treviso. Listen to the launch interview on Radio24 here.

Adobe Student Design competition

Adobe Student Achievement Awards

We congratulate the five clasVEM teams that made it to the semifinals of the 2009 international Adobe awards. In the mobile section they are Piscator, Derive and Spook. In the installation section: Bloom and Aleph.

Dropple

Eight new graduates

Eight students graduated with a thesis in interaction design this year. Their thesis topics ranged from services to lighten the load on the planet, to games and applications to encourage social participation to a new electronic musical instrument. Most have now found jobs but check out their projects here.

Liaison remote communication project

Keep-in-Touch

This IUAV studio project (IxD Lab 2, 2008–09) asked students to design and prototype a physical and virtual system to allow remote communication between people and people or people and information. Luckybite partners Durell Bishop and Tom Hulbert from London helped students prototype their designs using Arduino.

Crafting with current--beautiful physical interfaces

Crafting with Current

As part of the studio project, Yaniv Steiner of Nastypixel ran this one-week workshop on on physical computing—connecting virtual information to physical objects and devices. The workshop focuses on hacking electronic toys and using Arduino or Wiring input/output boards to connect domestic electronics to Internet data feeds.

Sketchatune

IDEA International Design Education Awards

Sketch-a-tune, the thesis project of IxD graduate, Giovanna Nicosia, was chosen to be included in the book Idea International Design Education Awards to celebrate creativity and innovation. The book included work from Italian design schools, as well as some from abroad. Giovanna went on to work at Dolce&Gabbana in Milan.

Cinomadic

A mobile welcome to Venice

'The Open Hand', the recent IUAV studio project on mobile phone applications (IxD Lab 1), is now online: each application welcomes visitors to Venice. Applications included Piscator, a service to help Erasmus students get to know each other, or Expiry Date: when your food is expiring, find someone to share it with. See the projects here

Digital shoe shopping interface

Applied Dreams

Many top fashion houses have their shoes manufacured in the area around Venice. As part of IxD Lab 1, this workshop allowed final-year students, in collaboration with new-media incubator H-Farm, to design and prototype new interaction ideas for point-of-sale in the shoe industry. More / Di più

Danish flag

IxD alumni in Copenhagen

Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor taught a theory workshop at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). Based in the Danish Design School, CIID's Masters course is in its first year. IxD alumni Nunzia Coco and Francesco Saverio Mondelli were among the 24 international students who received a bursary to study there.

Prototyping

From Copenhagen and California

Vinay Venkatraman, from CIID in Copenhagen, and Nicholas Zambetti of IDEO Palo Alto ran the Mobile Prototyping workshop for IxD Lab 1. Inspired by the student projects, Nicholas wrote LiveView Screencaster, an application for the Macintosh which allows you to simulate interfaces on the iPhone. We thank IDEO for generously sponsoring his collaboration with us.

Grapics exercise

Also from California

Graphic and interaction designer Christian Palino, of Microsoft Mountain View, ran this workshop as part of IxD Lab 1. Focus was on mapping interface flows and preparing graphics and animation for moble-phone screens.

Greenfit

IxD students win Samsung Young Design Awards

In the competition awards held in Milan, Alessandro Filippi won the bronze prize for his self-initiated project: Greenfit, a proposal for a product to increase people’s awareness of their energy use.

Martina Pagura's project, Selachimorpha, was the second most popular in the online vote that followed the competition.

Processing from Potsdam

As part of IxD Lab 1, Till Nagel from Potsdam Technical University taught a workshop for first-year students on Processing, the programming language for designers. Till was responsible for the Maeve interactive installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2008. Maeve is part of the MACE project, a collaboration which includes IUAV architects.

What's Cooking? screenshot

IxD students win Adobe Achievement Award

Valeria Donati, Maria Tasca and Valentina Venza won first prize ($3,000 plus $1,800 of Adobe software) in the mobile category of the international Adobe Achievement 2008 competition for What's Cooking?, their project for IxD Lab 1. Invited to New York for the prize-giving, they visited some of the city's leading design studios.

Keyboarding

Internships

Gaming in New York, designing phone services in London, interaction in San Francisco, information visualisation in Turin, social networking in Milan, games, websites, and music software in Roncade. Just some of the jobs and internships taken by final-year students and graduates in 2008.

Pula installation

Media Mediterranea

Pamela Moscarda led a Randomclapping team of IxD students and graduates (Laura Bordin, Francesca Burato, Davide Cocchi, Massimo Casagrande, Francesco Fraioli, Benito Condemi, Marco Zamarato, Claudia Zanon) who designed and made three interactive installations for Media Mediterranea 10, the festival of new technology at Pula, Croatia.

 

Home  About us  Courses  Projects  Resources  Intranet  Sitemap  Contact

© Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor 2007-09