Student Experience

Interior pages from the first volume of The Student Publication.

May 26, 2023

From Tragedy, a New School Found Its Voice

The first issue of The Student Publication of the School of Design paid tribute to the school’s first head of architecture, Matthew Nowicki, after his untimely death. Uplifted by his pioneering spirit, his students chose to carry it forward.

Photos showcasing Art2Wear's 20+ year history

May 25, 2023

Art2Wear: A Tradition of Showcasing Wearable Art

Art2Wear — one of the largest student-run productions of its kind in the Southeast — has become a highly anticipated annual wearable art showcase. But the first one was a small, grassroots production. It started in a fibers and surface design studio in 2002, where Vita Plume — then an assistant professor of art + design, who retired as an associate professor in 2012 — taught textile techniques such as weaving, knitting and dyeing cloth.

Sculpture created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of collaboration between NC State College of Design and SAS Institute

May 15, 2023

SAS and the NC State College of Design — A decade of fresh ideas

The College of Design and SAS celebrated a ten-year partnership in April. SAS Director of Product Design Rajiv Ramarajan reflects on the projects created over the years.

Model walks wearing an item from Ellie Baker's collection “Vita naturilis” during the 2023 Art2Wear show. Her collection uses the movement in nature as kinetic forces in her design.

May 4, 2023

Art2Wear Celebrates Motion, Life and Change

Art2Wear 2023 had a mission to inspire students to create wearable art as part of a greater narrative that includes art, fashion, digital production, world-building and storytelling.

Apr 26, 2023

Doctor of Design Program Celebrates its First Graduate: Dr. Juhann Waller

Juhann Waller (DDes Cohort 1) is the first student-practitioner of the program to graduate, and will receive his degree in August 2023. Dr. Waller is the CEO of J.C. Waller Associates, PC, based in Greensboro, NC. His doctoral dissertation is entitled “Resilient Infrastructure: An Integrated Design Approach for the Equitable Distribution of Stormwater Capital Improvements Projects for Pluvial Flood Mitigation.” It models a type of applied design research that can be effected in real time, for real change.

Apr 11, 2023

Winners from the 2023 Graduate Research Symposium Announced

Three College of Design students were winners at the Graduate Student Research Symposium. Marybeth Campeau (Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning) won first place, with Daniel Garrett (Advanced Architectural Studies) and Keagan Vargo (Industrial Design) winning second and third place, respectively.

Mar 31, 2023

In 2023, Art2Wear is Kinetic – and you’re invited.

Tickets for the 2023 Art2Wear show are now on sale! This year's production will move away from a traditional runway format and widen its lens to include a wider retinue of choreography, set design, entertainment and environmental styling.

Mar 9, 2023

Ashley Castrejon shares her study abroad experience in Chile with sustainable design

Ashley Castrejon is a graphic & experience design major in the College of Design. She answered a Q&A with study abroad about her experience in Chile studying sustainable design.

Jan 25, 2023

Media Arts, Design and Technology Department Embraces Name Change to Highlight the Future of Design

The Art + Design Department in the NC State College of Design will now be known by a new name, the Department of Media Arts, Design and Technology, affectionately known as MADTech. “This name change reflects a shift in the future of our department towards the emerging trends in digital media production" says Department Head Derek Ham. "It aligns with our academic content, our faculty expertise, and focuses on the areas of the profession that use emerging technology for creative use.”

Design students in Buckminster Fuller's class design a geodesic cotton mill or textile mill

Jan 18, 2023

75 Years of Leading by Design: College of Design Celebrates a Momentous Milestone

The College of Design celebrates its 75th anniversary throughout 2023 with a series of lectures, events, alumni weekends, and more.

Jan 12, 2023

Preparing the next generation of green professionals with LEED Lab

North Carolina State University (NC State) is preparing the next generation of green building leaders through LEED Lab. This multidisciplinary immersion course uses project-based learning in the built environment to educate and prepare students to become green building leaders and sustainability-focused citizens.

Dec 7, 2022

Design For ImpACCt Promotes Design Innovation To Solve Social Problems

Students from NC State College of Design, Boston College, Clemson University, and Virginia Tech partner each year for design summits as part of the Design for ImpACCt program to develop creative solutions to real-world social problems.

collage of student and alumni winners from AIA NC

Nov 14, 2022

Faculty, Students and Alumni Win AIA NC Design Awards

Faculty, students and alumni were the recipients of numerous design awards from AIA NC.

Nov 11, 2022

Duda Traveling Fellowship Offers New Perspectives on Latin American Architecture

Architecture graduates Anusha Khansaheb and Caroline Anderson recently returned from a research expedition to four Latin American cities. Together, they addressed the impact of architecture in a post-colonial landscape, and how unique identities tie into how these cities develop.

BGXD students fill out a "Matrix of A.I. Possibilities" for a sponsored studio project with REI.

Nov 7, 2022

Graphic Design Program Changes Name to Reflect Expertise in User Experience Design

After months of preparation, the graphic design program will change its degree names to reflect career opportunities for students. These new degree names emphasize not only the current strong curriculum taught by faculty, but deepen the program's alignment with exciting trends in the profession.

Photos and mementos of the residents of Kefalonia, Greece

Oct 26, 2022

Almost lost in time: College of Design students preserve local histories and social practices during study abroad project in Greece

Graphic design students, under the guidance of Professor Scott Townsend, traveled to Kefalonia, Greece in spring 2022. Their goal was to create a Living Histories website to house the oral histories collected from native Kefalonians. The histories of Kefalonia are being lost to time,” says Lewis. “Many younger residents are leaving the island, and we hope that our website can record cultural practices and histories to be accessed by future generations.”

Oct 14, 2022

Latinx Voices of Design: Clarissa Gernat

Clarissa Gernat is in her first year as a graduate student in the college's Art+Design program. She shared her experiences growing up with her family in Honduras, how her heritage ties into her creativity and her experiences at the College of Design.

Oct 13, 2022

Not Just for Looks: Industrial Design Students Reimagine Cosmetics Packaging

Industrial Design students at the College of Design worked with Eastman Chemical Company to create refillable, reusable and rechargeable (“R/R”) packaging for the luxury cosmetics industry. In the studio, students worked with Eastman’s Tritan™, Cristal™, or Cristal™ One materials – each created to reduce plastic waste without compromising product aesthetic and usability.

Iranian Mural Designed by Student Alan Yeh

Oct 10, 2022

For my sister, your sister, our sisters.

Master of Industrial Design student Alan Yeh was approached by the NC State Iranian Student Association to spread awareness around the death of Mahsa Amini and the challenges Iranian women face.

Oct 3, 2022

NC State Creatives: Makayla Esposito

Makayla Esposito is a graduate student in the NC State College of Design’s Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning program and she is passionate about making the invisible, visible.

Oct 3, 2022

Students and Coastal Dynamics Design Lab Team Take Top Honors in ASLA National Awards

Students in the College of Design's Master of Landscape Architecture program received four of the 19 national student awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects this year. The Coastal Dynamics Design Lab won their third award in the last five years for their commitment to delivering world-class technical assistance at no direct cost to low-resource, historically underserved rural communities.

Sep 27, 2022

Student Projects win AIA ASPIRE Awards

Three of our student teams won AIA South Atlantic Region Aspire Awards. NC State students won three of the five awards this year, and have won 10 out of 15 awards in the last three years.

Sep 26, 2022

Students showcase work in ASIFA-Hollywood Educators Forum

In spring 2022 the Department of Art+Design launched a Senior Capstone Animation Studio. In the studio, students worked individually and in groups on a year-long project to complete an animated film. The films ranged in form from hybrid 3D animation to traditional 2D animation and in length from 4 to 7 minutes. The films were screened as part of the ASIFA Hollywood-sponsored 2022 Student Animation Showcase with other animation programs from around the country.

Melissa Manjarrez Dominguez at her desk in the Landscape Architecture studio.

Sep 23, 2022

Latinx Voices of Design: Melissa Manjarrez Dominguez

Melissa Manjarrez Dominguez is a first-year graduate student in the college's Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning program. In her story, she recalls her youth in Sinaloa, Mexico, her experiences facing anti-immigration legislation in Alabama, and her desire to create landscapes that are enriching and available to everyone.

Sep 21, 2022

Industrial Design Graduate Wins Gold at 2022 IDEA Awards

Master of Industrial Design graduate, Abby Scheer, recently won Gold in the Student Category for the 2022 IDSA IDEA Awards. The award is considered by many to be the most prestigious product and industrial design award in the United States.

Ben Coleman - Envisioning Research Contest Entry

Aug 26, 2022

Students Visualize Structures of Oppression; win NC State Envisioning Research Contest

Students in the College of Design recently took top prizes in the Graphics and Data Visualization and photography categories of the NC State Envisioning Research Contest. Three of the four entries from the college were part of the DIY Cartography: Oppressive Infrastructures class, which explored how we as a society are grappling with how to best serve diverse communities and create more equitable futures for all while visualizing the complex historic context around oppressive infrastructures in the US.

Jasmeen Kaur's redesign of the NC State Graduate School + Poole College of Management Building proposes improving accessibility beyond code compliance.

Aug 17, 2022

Accessible Design Takes Spotlight in Competition

Fourteen students were tasked with designing a new building that focuses on accessibility and universal design on NC State Centennial Campus that would serve the Poole College of Management and the Graduate School.

Aug 17, 2022

Ethnographic Fiber Artist Karen Baker on Slow Fashion and Natural Products: How One DDes Student Explores the Lost Histories of Textiles

Karen Baker, current student in the Doctor of Design Program at NC State's College of Design, is a weaver focused on design, history, and critical studies of textile and fiber in Washington, DC. She is currently researching the textile, fiber and craft contributions and techniques of enslaved and free African American weavers before the Great Migration.

Aug 15, 2022

Gene Bressler steps in as interim department head of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Eugene Bressler will serve as interim department head of landscape architecture and environmental planning following Meg Calkins’ retreat to the faculty at the beginning of July. Bressler returns to the college from retirement, where he served as head of the department from 2006 until his retirement in 2018. He will serve in the position until next spring.

Jul 14, 2022

Student Brings Home 2022 IDSA Top Prize

Master of Industrial Design student Maggie Jarrett has been named the 2022 IDSA Graduate Student Merit Award winner for the South District.

3D-printed ceramic items sit on a shelf in Shawn Protz's ceramics lab

Jun 27, 2022

2022 Designlife Magazine

Read about the people and activities featured in the 2022 issue of Designlife Magazine.

Professor Derek Ham demonstrates how augmented reality can highlight the history of Negro League Baseball and the impact of players like Buck Leonard.

Jun 20, 2022

History and Augmented Reality Meet to Uplift a Black Icon from North Carolina

Students and faculty are bringing new life and awareness to icons like Negro League Baseball player Buck Leonard, using AR to enhance typical displays into interactive, mini-museums. Working with a grant from the NC State Foundation focused on “Mixed Reality for Social Impact,” Derek Ham, department head of Art + Design at NC State’s College of Design, is helping to tell the stories of underrepresented communities in the medium he knows best – Augmented Reality (AR).

Jun 17, 2022

Can We Reverse the Rise in Maternal Mortality?

Two Ph.D. students from the College of Design joined a team of UNC-Chapel Hill doctoral candidates and won the 2022 Map the System Competition in Chapel Hill. Now, they are headed to Oxford University to compete against research teams from around the globe.

Jun 14, 2022

3D-Printed Ceramics Encompass Art, Technology and Tradition

The College of Design is buzzing with innovation as students and teachers alike discover new ways to mix creativity with technology. For one faculty member, that means taking clay craft to a new level by 3D printing ceramics.

May 31, 2022

Honoring Faculty: Pat Rand Initiates Roger Clark Architecture Speaker Support Endowment

In honor of the outstanding and enduring teaching of Roger Clark, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Architecture Pat Rand has created the Roger Clark Architecture Speaker Support Endowment. This annual lecture will allow the School of Architecture to bring leading professionals and architectural educators to campus to present architectural topics relevant to students’ future careers.

Screen Grab from Iyare Oronsaye's project "Juneteenth" for the Minnesota Historical Society

May 24, 2022

Student Profile: Iyare Oronsaye Seeks to Improve Diversity in Animation

Iyare Oronsaye is currently the director and assistant professor of the animation and illustration program at the University of Northwestern as well as a student practitioner in the College of Design's Doctor of Design (DDes) program. As a DDes student, Oronsaye is researching how inclusivity can make positive impacts within the animation industry.

Video still from group one demonstrating how emergency services could be designed for AVs.

May 20, 2022

When Graphic Design Meets Big Tech: Red Hat Sponsored Studio Tackles Autonomous Vehicles

Graphic design students recently partnered with Red Hat to create solutions for a world dominated by autonomous vehicles. Students then had to design for a variety of human factors such as family needs, career specializations and security concerns.

May 18, 2022

Celebrating Another Successful Day of Giving

The College of Design celebrated another successful Day of Giving on March 23, 2022 thanks to the generous gifts of donors, alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends, all of whom believe in the importance of design education. Thanks to your support, the college was able to raise $474,885 from 373 gifts, exceeding last year’s 309 gifts by 21%.

Stats from the Designlife magazine. $23,173,190 dollars raised between 2017-2021. $7.4 million in planned gifts during the campaign. 160% increase in endowment, growing to $15.2 million. 65% of the design endowment goes to student support. 90% increase in scholarships awarded since 2016-2017. 89% of campaign gifts were less than $25,000.

May 10, 2022

Celebrating the Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign

Thanks to the generous support of our donors who contributed to the Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign, we have been able to make tremendous strides in the last five years. Because of you, we can look ahead to our future. We’re able to consider the next 75 years of design education and shape another seven decades of designers.

May 7, 2022

Ph.D. Graduate Shares Her Journey From Program Acceptance to Assistant Professor

Meichun Liu, a recent graduate, shares her story from acceptance in the Ph.D. in Design program at NC State to landing a tenure-track assistant professor position at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She shares tips for success after graduation and talks about her discovery of the program and her research focus.

May 5, 2022

Congratulations, Class of 2022!

We asked our spring graduates for some thoughts on their time in the College of Design. Below, hear from them in their own words.

The Alton Great Streets project, located in the St. Louis region, employed drone technology during the pandemic to build 3-D models and quickly iterate and visualize alternative plans for virtual public workshops (image courtesy of Design Workshop).

May 4, 2022

A New Way To Measure: Bringing Drone Technology to Landscape Architecture

With the help of NC State’s Institute for Transportation, Research and Education (ITRE), Emily McCoy, associate professor of practice in landscape architecture and environmental planning, has been flying drones across campus for the past five years. But she’s capturing more than the beauty of the landscape. McCoy and the students in her landscape performance class have been using tools such as drones with thermal cameras to evaluate how different landscapes across campus perform from a sustainability standpoint.

May 4, 2022

Designlife Magazine: Drones, Automated Vehicles, 3D Ceramics and More

The spring 2022 issue of Designlife magazine is here! Our feature story celebrates the end of the Think and Do the Extraordinary campaign, and most notably, the many faces that not only made it our most successful campaign to date, but shaped the college and its direction, laying the groundwork for years to come.

Apr 27, 2022

MID Students Abby Scheer and Arissa Wheeler win awards through NC State eGames

MID Students Abby Scheer and Arissa Wheeler won awards through NC State eGames competition, placing in third and second place, respectively.

Industrial Design Senior Sage Cofield works on a project sponsored by Eastman.

Apr 18, 2022

Sustainability by Design

Students are gaining real-world experience while reducing waste in a new project sponsored by Eastman. The company challenged NC State industrial design seniors in the College of Design to create consumer products with sustainability top of mind.

Apr 15, 2022

Art2Wear Takes the Stage in 2022

On April 27 in Talley Student Union’s Stewart Theatre, spotlights will once again shine on the runway following Art2Wear’s two-year hiatus from its widely anticipated in-person fashion show. The annual event is organized and hosted by the College of Design’s Art + Design department, and usually attracts about 1,000 attendees including NC State students, greater Raleigh community members and industry partners.

Abby Sheer at Graduate Research Symposium

Apr 12, 2022

Graduate Student Research Symposium Winners

Nearly 200 NC State graduate students presented their research projects this week at the 15th annual Graduate Student Research Symposium, and 27 were recognized as the best presenters in their disciplines. Posters are judged by faculty, and students receive recognition for top posters. The goals are to showcase the outstanding quality and diversity of graduate-level research…

Apr 12, 2022

Retired Materials Lab Instructor Jack Lancaster Passes Away at 79

Ibby Jackson Lancaster III, known as Jack or Jackie, passed away on March 29, 2022 after a brief battle with lung cancer. Jack worked at the College of Design for over three decades, and has made a lasting impression on generations of students.

Apr 9, 2022

Students design in-home mold detection device; win third place in Stanford Design Challenge

Industrial Design Senior Lindsey Dotson is part of a winning team that designed an in-home mold detection device to help people maintain healthy homes.

Apr 8, 2022

2022 Shawcroft Prize Winners Announced

The Brian Shawcroft Prize is awarded every year to an architecture student nominated by a faculty member for their excellent hand drawing skills. This year marks the 28th year of the competition.