All News

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 4, 2022

Uniting Design and Art

The North Carolina Museum of Art’s rebranding efforts encapsulate the museum’s collection through leading efforts by two College of Design alumnae. Christin Hardy and her colleague Allison Maslow are both graduates of the graphic design program at NC State, and their education has been formative in the current rebranding efforts for the NCMA.

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.

Oct 1, 2022

College of Design Releases a New Strategic Plan

The College of Design educates students to become innovators and thought leaders while creating a community for designers, researchers, scholars and practitioners. Our vision is to pursue excellence in design education, scholarship and engagement to empower a more just, healthy, resilient, flourishing and sustainable future.

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.

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.

Sep 15, 2022

Meet our newest members: College of Design Leaders Council

The College of Design is excited to welcome four new members to its Leaders Council. Members of the Leaders Council support the college’s strategic direction, assist in securing financial resources to achieve its long-range goals and actively advocate for the college’s vision to become the leading public interdisciplinary design college in the country.

Sep 6, 2022

Designing for Dance

“Designing for dance is the ultimate act of design,” says Professor of Art + Design J. Mark Scearce, Ph.D. For the ballet’s 25th anniversary, four of Scearce’s ballets will be produced, giving design students a rare front row seat in the art of meeting client expectations.

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.

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 18, 2022

Landed Internationals wins IPHS Special Mention

Burak Erdim’s book, “Landed Internationals: Planning Cultures, the Academy, and the Making of the Modern Middle East” recently received special mention for the International Planning History Society (IPHS) first book prize. The First Book Prize is for the most innovative book in planning history, written in English and based on original new research.

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.

Jun 27, 2022

2022 Designlife Magazine

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

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 16, 2022

In Search of Thoreau’s Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss

Robin Vuchnich, a new media artist, user experience designer, and an assistant professor of practice in the College of Design, leveraged digitized specimens from the Harvard University Herbaria to craft an immersive experience in the gallery theater of the Harvard Museum of Natural Science. In Search of Thoreau’s Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss is an immersive multidisciplinary experience that marries art and science through a modern artistic interpretation of Thoreau’s preserved plants.

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 3, 2022

Head to the Cannes Film Festival at the Libraries!

Hill Library’s AR/VR Studio hosts the film festival’s virtual reality finalists, June 8-12

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.

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.

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.

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%.

May 12, 2022

Art + Design’s Derek Ham to be Featured at Cannes

Department Head of Art + Design, Derek Ham, will have his most recent completed VR title, “Barnstormers: Determined to Win” shown in one of the world’s most well-known and prestigious film festivals - the 2022 Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes. 

May 12, 2022

NLI Director Joins 80 Researchers Worldwide to Create Parameters for Healthy and Sustainable Cities

Director of the Natural Learning Initiative Dr. Deepti Adlakha’s latest research work was published as part of The Lancet Global Health Series on Urban Design, Transport and Health. Urban design and city planning influence how we can travel, the quality of the air we breathe, our access to essential facilities and services, our participation in social events, and our enjoyment of green spaces. All this is vital to our physical and mental health. In 2016, a series of papers in The Lancet highlighted the myriad links between cities and health and proposed a set of city planning indicators. In this follow-up series published in The Lancet Global Health, authors show how the indicators can benchmark and monitor progress to guide urban policy to achieve population health and sustainability targets. They provide tools that other cities can use to replicate the indicators and explore “where to next” to create healthy and sustainable cities, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

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 9, 2022

Design Students Develop Compostable Take-Out Container Prototypes in Project Sponsored by Eastman

To combat packaging waste, NC State’s College of Design worked alongside Eastman to create food packaging with a new compostable material.

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.

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 29, 2022

Announcing the 2022 O&E Incentive Grants Award Winners

The 2022 Incentive Grants Awarded proposals will receive $10,000 each to support work through June 2023.

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.

Apr 22, 2022

Coastal Dynamics Project Awarded Part of $2 Million Grant for Environmental Justice

The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has named the NC State College of Design's Coastal Dynamics Design Lab as one of 15 climate-focused projects to receive an Environmental Justice for Climate grant. The CEC’s first $2 million EJ4Climate grant program is aimed at supporting efforts made toward environmental justice and climate resilience for communities across North America.

Apr 19, 2022

Mural Contest Winner’s Vision Comes to Life

Carmina Ferreras’ inspirational design for the mural contest comes to life inside the lobby of the Graduate School.

Apr 19, 2022

New state partnership to support local planning for community resilience

The N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) has committed funding to the NC State Coastal Dynamics Design Lab (CDDL) for the development of five North Carolina community floodprint reports over the next three years. A valuable tool for building future community resilience, a floodprint is a landscape planning approach developed by CDDL to address land and water relationships. The floodprint development process incorporates issues such as flooding, recovery and equity into the planning process.

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.

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 11, 2022

Frank Lee Craig: Near Distance Exhibit at the Gregg Museum

Excerpt from the Gregg Museum of Art and Design’s exhibition description: Frank Lee Craig: Near Distance February 10 – August 20, 2022 Of the many forms of visual art that have emerged the last two centuries, collage and its three-dimensional sibling, assemblage (found-object sculpture), probably come closest to representing the process of human memory. While…

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.