Deborah Beardslee is a designer, artist and associate professor in the School of Design at RIT. Her teaching focuses on design process and methodology, verbal and visual concept development, systems thinking, environmental graphic design and cross-disciplinary problem solving and collaboration. Professor Beardslee taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Department of Communication Arts and Design for two years prior to joining the faculty at RIT. Across her career she has worked and/or studied with Ben Day, Rob Carter, Meredith Davis, Phil Meggs, John DeMao and Victor Papanek.
ArtHouse Design (Denver) developed the comprehensive environmental graphics, wayfinding, theming and donor signage design program for Golisano Children's Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.
Fabric structures, the once and always lightweight workhorse, create a limitless design dimension.
Twenty years ago, the phrase “fabric architecture” referred to an outdoor tent or restaurant awning. Today, an ever-expanding palette of materials and vastly improved structural, lighting, and graphic technologies allow fabrics to escape the awning and take on new roles: multimedia canvas, iconic sculpture, branded totem, and architectural skin, just to name a few.
Garbage cans are often the center of pollution on an individual level. By implementing unexpected display approaches in particular public contexts, this set of three installations sought to heighten viewer awareness of this often-overlooked functional object and draw attention to issues of both individual and society-wide consumption and pollution.
Sarah M. Kirchoff (MFA candidate, project manager)
