“Design wisdom is a fabric that emerges from the intersection of scientific and designerly ways of knowing and doing.” –Elizabeth B.–N. Sanders Issue 06 is structured around the theme of Prospects, Practices and Provocations and is designed to encourage the authors and readers to think about the design practice in terms of process, design wisdom […]

The history of design in Canada is a largely undocumented and undiscussed topic in design studies. Not only do Canadian designers and design academics often overlook their own history in favour of European or American design history, there is little to no study of Canadian design found outside of Canada. While this is problematic in […]

What is wisdom? What is design wisdom? This paper will explore the first question using established and emerging definitions. For the second question, I will propose that design wisdom is a fabric that emerges from the intersection of scientific and designerly ways of knowing and doing. Design wisdom can be used both for making sense […]

Consumer culture has disconnected us from the things we own. We are immersed in a cycle of buying commodities and producing waste. Replacing and/or buying new things instead of fixing, reusing, and making has become the obvious solution. In this project, my partner Sie Gal and I aimed to bring back these ideas by confronting individuals […]

The following takes inspiration from Liz Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers’ recent metahistorical editorial article which periodizes design as: 1980s – expert discipline-specific design of products on the basis of market research 2010s – interdisciplinary designing of interactive experiences on the basis of participatory research through practice 2040s – generalized co-design of sustainable systems [21] […]

Introduction LifeBooster approached my smart objects core design class at Emily Carr to create a safety-monitoring wearable technology for labour workers in fall 2014. I immediately saw the opportunity for such an object to be used within the ever-growing construction and forestry industries in British Columbia (B.C.). LifeBooster sees a niche market for wearable technology […]

Design has moved on fuzzy grounds for a long time. Decisions have followed best practices, opinions leaders, “good taste,” aesthetic fads, and personal assumptions about what works and what doesn’t. Since the times of William Morris, through the Bauhaus times, well into the XX Century, and even today, many designers worked all their lives on […]

In December, 2014, the Health Design Lab submitted a “blanket” Ethics Application to Emily Carr’s Research Ethics Board (reb) in order to summarize and explain our overall methodology. The goal of this application was streamlining the ethics application process for projects the Lab manages that are very similar in methodology. The following text excerpts some […]

I was born with primary lymphedema (PL)—a rare, congenital, progressive and chronic swelling affecting primarily the limbs, leading to distortion in size, shape and even function, in my left arm and intestines. PL is caused by a failure in the lymphatic system and contributes to an individual’s physical, social, emotional, and psychological distress. Furthermore, without […]

The British Columbia ministry of Health has established a program called Informed Dining (ID), which seeks to help restaurants provide nutritional information for prepared foods. Administrative staff have identified a need for people to more easily access this information. Emily Carr University of Art + Design students were asked to help. Our team used interviews, […]

This paper describes the research and theoretical orientation of the Studio for Extensive Aesthetics (SEA), which produces projects and artistic research on the aesthetic implications of technological innovation. Particularly, the studio investigates the aesthetics of the growing archive of cultural data and information produced by global networked infrastructures. The work is transdisciplinary in nature, operating […]

Interactive ebook applications continue to rapidly grow not only in sales but also into a sophisticated design discourse that has begun to establish best-practices of user experience design. These practices, however, are always in flux. As early as 2002, researchers defined “Electronic Textbook Design Guidelines” and suitable gestural affordances for an ebook learning environment [7]. […]