Struggling downtowns and retail districts of small cities and towns have been completely overlooked by graphic designers, since these independent businesses often cannot afford, or aren’t aware of, the services of designers. In the graphic design department at Iowa State University, we see this problem as an excellent opportunity to engage our students in community-based design. For over 15 years, our senior graphic design students have been introduced to Environmental Graphic Design while working on the re-design of a downtown district--engaging with communities to reinvigorate their retail districts in efforts to enhance the quality of life for local residents.

Many national and international service companies (such as retail stores and hotels) operate loyalty programs that offer points and rewards. Loyalty programs collect information on individual customer, but the information never reaches customer service representatives who could use it to personalize service. This paper investigates if loyalty program data can be collected and fed back to customer-facing employees to provide value to customers and improve their perception of their own job performance.

The new College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University in Shanghai forms a multi-functional complex for college students and teaching staff. Opened in 2014, it was designed as a platform for promoting opportunities for dialogue, fostering design thinking, and triggering interaction between users and the environment. As part of the building design, a new signage program was developed and prototypes were utilized to test and encourage interaction with the signage design process.