designlife magazine

Jun 10, 2025

Spring 2025 Designlife Magazine

The spring issue of Designlife magazine is here! Explore this issue for stories on the magazine’s new look and feel, the incredible work done by faculty, students and alumni and more. Explore the Issue Dean’s Message: Designing for Impact The College of Design continues to design for impact – to positively impact the human experience…

Jun 10, 2025

Scaling with Empathy: AI Solutions for Urban Planning

As cities and towns incorporate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) into urban planning, Lee Cherry is asking an important question: how can they best ensure AI is used fairly and ethically? The concept is at the heart of Cherry’s research as he pursues his Doctor of Design from NC State’s College of Design.

Jabria Oliver shares the focus of her research as a Master of Industrial Design student: a lack of menstrual hygiene for unhoused populations, a human-centered approach to a design problem.

Jun 10, 2025

Designing Dignity: Jabria Oliver’s Fight Against Period Poverty

Period poverty, defined as the lack of access to menstrual hygiene products, safe facilities and adequate education, is a global issue affecting millions of people. For women experiencing homelessness, this often-overlooked challenge exacerbates an already precarious situation, forcing them to make impossible choices between basic needs. In an industry crowded with consumer electronics, automobiles and medical devices, Jabria Oliver, a recent graduate of the Master of Industrial Design program, is working to create a prominent space designing for social impact.

Maraffi instructs students on how to use the motion capture suit in front of the LED wall of the Virtual Production Lab.

Jun 10, 2025

At the Forefront: Making a Place in Virtual Production

A giant talking octopus in a lab nestled in the South American jungle. Actors and Hollywood filmmakers working to complete a Sci-Fi short over just four days. Off screen, technicians, camera operators and support staff create the immersive world displayed on the giant LED wall, using 3D printed props, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and generative AI. This is just another day in the Virtual Production Lab, where students and educators innovate and learn within this burgeoning field.

Students visited Espacio Escultórico, which means "sculptural space," a UNESCO World Heritage site made from volcanic rock at UNAM.

Jun 10, 2025

Global Perspectives in Design: How NC State’s Duda Program Shapes Design Students

Partnering with renowned Mexican architect Gabriela Carrillo, architecture and landscape architecture students explored the urban and environmental complexities of a metropolis rich in Indigenous history and modern challenges as part of this year’s Duda Visiting Designer Program.

A student photographs the projection of the earth for use in their studio project.

Jun 10, 2025

Bringing Visualization to Education: Designing an Out-of-This-World Museum Experience

Olga Njai, a student in the Master of Graphic & Experience Design program, is an experienced graphic designer. But her first studio in the program presented a challenge unlike any other she’d taken on before. The instructor, Associate Professor Deborah Littlejohn, tasked Njai and her classmates with creating a visual data story on the topic of their choice for the Durham Museum of Life and Science using NOAA's Science on A Sphere display.

Students from NC State Architecture Design + Build

Jun 10, 2025

Mindful Design: Students Create Shade Structures for Raleigh Skate Park

For architecture students in the Design + Build program, completing four shade structures for the Conlon Family Skatepark in just eleven weeks was a triumph. The second crowning achievement: spray-painted tags appeared soon after the artfully perforated, white panels were hoisted up and secured. For the team of four instructors and 15 students, it meant they had ensured that the design connected culturally with the intended community — a principle that lies at the heart of Design + Build.

mockups for the 2025 issue of designlife magazine

Jun 10, 2025

Embracing a New Look: Designlife Magazine Visualizes the Art of Making

This year, the Designlife magazine has a bold new look, envisioned by a group of students in the graphic & experience design program. Working with faculty advisor Jarrett Fuller, the students conceptualized and helped execute a creative refresh of the magazine in just

Demarcus Williams with College of Design Brooks Hall sign

Mar 19, 2025

Demarcus Williams ‘03 Creates Scholarship in Kermit Bailey’s Honor

Demarcus Williams [BGD '03] embodies the NC State spirit of think and do – driven, passionate and committed to giving back. His journey from an undergraduate student navigating college life to a successful marketing and communications professional was supported by a host of faculty in the graphic design program, particularly Kermit Bailey. Now, Williams is establishing a scholarship in Bailey's name, hoping to provide the same support he received to future generations of designers.

Oct 21, 2024

College of Design Chooses Matt Checkowski ‘98 as 2024 Distinguished Alumnus

The College of Design is proud to recognize Matt Checkowski [BGD ‘98] as this year’s distinguished alumnus. Checkowski, vice president of multisensory brand innovation and strategy at Mastercard, will be honored at the Wolfpack Boards Luncheon in October and serve as the College of Design spring 2025 commencement speaker. Matt Checkowski’s work explores the intersections of design, narrative and technology, working across boundaries to elevate and expand storytelling.

Jul 30, 2024

A Love of Art and Technology

Roxanne Hicklin graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Salem College. She spent her summers as a sketch artist at Carowinds, capturing quick likenesses of people on the sidewalk before their attention wandered, along with their feet. Following graduation, she was able to parlay that skill into working at Channel 5 News as a courtroom sketch artist, learning graphic arts and computer animation while there. Her ability to be adaptable and always learning on the job led her from Channel 5 to SAS, and finally landing as a volunteer and philanthropist at NC State, where she’s mentoring and nurturing a new generation of artists.

Jul 25, 2024

The Future of Design in Technology

How will technology continue to affect our role as designers? We interviewed two faculty in the College of Design to explore technology’s role as it relates to ideation, human-machine teaming, and the impacts on our rights and resources.

Loddie D. Bryan, Jr. [BLA ‘57] arranges a model in a photographic model box, circa 1956.

Jul 12, 2023

Landscape Architecture: An Early History

The landscape architecture program saw many successes in the early years as part of the School of Design. The program, accredited in 1951, was one of the first two accredited programs in the American South. Landscape art and gardening have been taught at NC State since the 180s, but the formal program wasn't developed until 1911.

master of graphic and experience design student works on computer

Jul 6, 2023

Ready for the Turning Point

In the century since the term was coined, graphic design has continued to redefine itself in the face of both technological and cultural changes – whether that’s the birth of the desktop computer in the early nineties or the emergence of artificial intelligence image generators like DALL-E in the early 2020s. As such, graphic design at NC State has also been one of continual redefinition, at the forefront of emerging practices.

Kristen Schaffer flips through the archives as part of the NC State Libraries special collections

Jun 29, 2023

Sifting Through the Past

Associate Professor of Architecture Kristen Schaffer shares her experience of sorting through the archives as part of the research related to the College of Design's 75th anniversary.

Jun 23, 2023

A Driving Force

From its founding in 1948 to the present day, each dean of the College of Design has left a mark.

Bachelor of Architecture final project studio review, 2016. Photo credit: Pat Rand.

Jun 21, 2023

Architecture: Then and Now

Dean Kamphoefner displayed a clear vision to establish in only a few years an institution of national and international prominence. He used all means available to him, including the curriculum, faculty and student selections and negotiations for university resources, to achieve this goal. Explore the history of the architecture program to see how Kamphoefner implemented his vision.

Jun 13, 2023

Exploring our Spaces

Explore the history of the buildings that have housed students from the College of Design since its inception.

early representations of the school of design curriculum.

Jun 6, 2023

Trees of Design

As the College of Design faces the social, environmental and economic challenges of the 21st century in its 75th anniversary, the Tree of Design stares out from the pages of this early bulletin to capture our imagination on what interdisciplinary thinking might look like in the 21st century.

Students working at drafting tables in the College of Design, circa 1955

May 20, 2023

The Class That Started It All

The students who graduated from the School of Design in the spring of 1953 were the first to complete the new school’s five-year course load. Their commitment set the pace for everything that came after.

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

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.

Jun 2, 2022

Jennifer Peavey Plans to Back the Pack Forever

Through a special legacy gift, this NC State alumna hopes to provide professors in the College of Design with the resources to think and do ad infinitum.

Jun 2, 2022

Brian Leonard Believes in Design That Improves Lives

Industrial designer Brian Leonard often finds himself in debates about form versus function. But rather than focusing on how something looks, he’s more concerned with how design can benefit people now and in the future.

Mark Templeton speaking at the Fall 2021 NC State Commencement Ceremony

May 31, 2022

Mark Templeton Wants You to Think Outside the Box

College of Design alumnus Mark Templeton, NC State’s fall 2021 commencement speaker, crowned a storied career several years ago by retiring as CEO of Citrix, a multibillion-dollar software company.

May 31, 2022

It All Adds Up: Alumnus Doug Bennett Reflects on a Lifetime of Giving

Doug Bennett attended the College of Design during an “explosive period” in our nation’s history, starting in 1965 and graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1970. Throughout his time in the school, he was able to serve as the business manager on the Student Publication, and that was his first foray into philanthropy. After graduating, he served in the U.S. Navy, and started a lifetime of giving. Bennett likened his continuous giving to a habit. He started giving, initially, modest donations to the College of Design and kept up with annual donations ever since.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jan 7, 2022

From A-to-Z: Lesley-Ann Noel and Decolonizing Design

Assistant Professor of Art + Design Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel aims to bring underrepresented voices into everyday design education through social innovation, inclusive community-led research and public health solutions. By creating tools such as the Designer’s Critical Alphabet and the “Who Am I” Positionality Wheel, she is making conversations around race and bias more common in classrooms and workplaces.

Sep 9, 2021

College of Design Secures First Distinguished Professorship with Support from the Goodnights

The College of Design has named Wayne Place as its inaugural Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Architecture. The professorship was made possible by a gift from longtime NC State supporters Dr. Jim and Mrs. Ann Goodnight.

Jul 15, 2021

Angela Medlin: Doing the Long Math

Until she was in a position to hire talent while working for brands like Levi Strauss & Co, The North Face, Eddie Bauer, Nike and Adidas, Angela could not help but notice that she was the only Black designer in the room. After 30 years in the industry she made a life-changing decision – she was going to design for herself again.

Jul 12, 2021

DDes Student Designs Learning Assessments for Deaf Children

When user experience designer AJ Polanco decided to advance his career by earning a doctoral degree, his search for the perfect opportunity led him to become part of the first cohort of eight students to enroll in the College of Design’s brand-new Doctor of Design program in 2018.

Jun 21, 2021

Can You Teach Design From a Box? Design Lab Thinks So.

The Design Lab plans to offer two Digital Design Camps this summer. One week of Design Foundations for middle school students and one week of Design Explorations for high school students. This program will be an intensive, pre-college experience that introduces students to the fundamentals of design and the process of creating portfolio quality projects in a virtual studio environment.

Jun 17, 2021

Navigating an Unfamiliar Landscape

College of Design faculty faced uncharted terrain - and persevered - when COVID-19 forced them to convert their landscape architecture studio to a hybrid model. A change of scenery was in order when Gene Bressler and Carla Delcambre embarked on their fifth year of teaching an introductory graduate landscape architecture design studio.

Jun 16, 2021

Entertainment with Impact: Derek Ham Brings Art + Design’s Direction into Focus

It’s no secret that the Art + Design program is a leading force in training the next generation for careers in animation, game design and virtual reality. However, according to Department Head Derek Ham, the world of academia has developed a stigma around one of the program’s most lucrative opportunities: the entertainment industry. In his…

Department Head Tsailu Liu in the Lampe Drive space under renovation

May 4, 2021

Early Champions for the New Design Center at 111 Lampe Drive

As renovations for the Design Center at 111 Lampe Drive continue to progress, students are preparing to utilize the blank spaces for fall 2021. A key aspect of this renovation is creating collaborative studio spaces that can support the numerous studio partnerships. One of those companies, Eastman, pledged a major gift to become the first partner to name a space in the new facility.

Jul 28, 2020

Continuities and Transformations: Evolving a Home Over Four Decades

Paul Tesar has been designing his home over the past 40 years. Since 1979 he has been collaborating with former students from the College of Design to shape the gradual evolution of his house to “home.” He embraces building as a process, rather than a product, interwoven with the lives of its inhabitants, its place and those who built it, and his home is a true reflection of that.