The design of education environments can serve not only aesthetic, inspirational needs but also practical ones. The integration of architecture and environmental graphic design communicates and reinforces core concepts and ideas related to the students’ ongoing studies. Importantly, this opportunity applies to all learning environments—low cost can yield high-impact results. We believe creative, unexpected design intervention can assist current schools that are struggling to keep students engaged, and also act as a catalyst for a new type of school environment that sets a precedent for high-performance learning facilities. The success of not-for-profits such as Publicolor in using design to improve student outcomes serves as inspiration for our ideas.

Workplace safety is closely related to staff’s wellness, but they have been mostly approached as separate initiatives due to organizational conventions and operational constraints. Thanks to the rising awareness of health and wellness as well as advanced technology capabilities, corporate attempts are increasing for creating a safer work environment by monitoring employees’ physical and emotional conditions in relation to potential workplace hazards. This paper will present an integrated design approach to workplace safety and wellness based on the case studies of communication system design projects that explored digitally augmented warehouse work environments.

Charrettes and critiques can be devised specifically for experiential graphic design course goals and assignments in order to inform design process and final project outcomes in particular and unanticipated ways. For the purposes of this paper, charrette refers to a planned, intensive and timed experience that is strategically directed toward the investigation and solution of a specific design goal or objective. The term critique implies a group dialogue, analysis or assessment of work during a particular phase of design process. Diverse approaches to these considerations are explored and illustrated within this paper.

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.