education

Admit it. Your seven-year-old nephew could out-HTML tag you any day and you think that a Cascading Style Sheet is something with a thread count. That’s where the mediabistro.com mothership comes in. They’ve asked us to tell you about the upcoming online course in HTML fundamentals. Over four fun-filled weeks, web design design guru Laura Galbraith will guide you through a variety of web page production techniques, from column-based layouts and search engine optimization to semantic markup and advanced CSS styles. The online learning fun begins Thursday, May 31, and by Independence Day you’ll have brought a pre-designed webpage to life through the magic of HTML. Preview the course syllabus and register here.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Enhance your resume and your vacation photos with the mediabistro.com mothership’s online course in Adobe Photoshop, back by popular demand. In four short weeks (May 3-May 31) you can get up and running on the program of programs—the subject of many an ethical debate—under the guidance of images whiz Rob Tannenbaum, a photo editor who has worked for The Martha Stewart Show and wields a master’s degree in newsroom graphics management. Learn more here.

Among the perks of attending the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art are the myriad opportunities to fondle the walls of the academic building designed by Thom Mayne, courses such as Architectonics Lab with Professor Lebbeus Woods, and, oh yes, it’s free. But not for long. Sans tuition since 1859, when it was established by bearded industrialist and gelatin magnate Peter Cooper, Cooper Union is now turning to fee-based graduate programs to shore up its shaky finances. “Our preliminary financial analysis shows starkly that new, reliable, and scalable streams of revenue are imperative—over and beyond what an ambitious fundraising strategy may be relied upon to yield, and sooner than a set of options with long term promise can deliver,” wrote Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha in a statement issued yesterday. “Weighing all the alternatives, I am convinced that some fee-based programs are necessary for Cooper Union’s solvency, and that this framework gives us the most optimistic way forward.”

Undergrads are safe for now: all will continue to receive full-tuition scholarships, a commitment that Bharucha promised would extend at least through the class entering in the fall of 2013. However, the addition of any tuition-based programs at Cooper Union is not sitting well with some students, and a walkout is set to begin later today. “Charging tuition at the Cooper Union will require altering the original mission statement of the school which states that the Cooper Union ‘…awards full scholarships to all enrolled students,’” wrote Rachel Appel, a Cooper Union art student and an organizer of Friends of Cooper Union, in an e-mail sent this morning. Bharuca’s announcement came just days before a “community summit” at which the Friends of Cooper Union plans to present various non-tuition based solutions to the school’s fiscal crisis. That meeting will proceed tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. in the Great Hall at Cooper Union.

Admit it. Your seven-year-old nephew could out-HTML tag you any day and you think that a Cascading Style Sheet is something with a thread count. That’s where the mediabistro.com mothership comes in. They’ve asked us to tell you about an upcoming weekend course in HTML and CSS. In one hyperlinked weekend (April 14-15), artist, designer, and interactive developer David Tristman will guide you in breathing digital life into a pre-designed web page. Along the way, you’ll learn how to turn a PSD layout into HTML, the fundamentals of CSS3 styling of color and transitions, and why “@font-face” describes more than the contorted visages of typographers on deadline. By Sunday, you’ll be creating fully functional web pages, debating the finer points of inline and block display, and have gained all the tools necessary to launch your site. Register here.

Admit it. Your seven-year-old nephew could out-HTML tag you any day and you think that a Cascading Style Sheet is something with a thread count. That’s where the mediabistro.com mothership comes in. They’ve asked us to tell you about the upcoming online course in HTML Fundamentals. Over four fun-filled weeks, web designer (and illustrator) Laura Galbraith will guide you through a variety of web page production techniques, from column-based layouts and search engine optimization to semantic markup and advanced CSS styles. And you’re bound to ace the Photoshop and typography sections. The online learning fun begins on March 22, and by Celebrity Apprentice star George Takei‘s birthday (April 20), you’ll have brought a pre-designed webpage to life through the magic of HTML. Preview the course syllabus and register here.

As if you needed further proof that Pratt Institute is an art and design education powerhouse, the Brooklyn institution has announced the five ultra-accomplished alumni that will be honored next month for their exceptional achievements since graduating. Get a load of this group: Arem Duplessis, design director for The New York Times Magazine; artist Ik-Joong Kang; designer Ted Muehling; photographer Sylvia Plachy; and Annabelle Selldorf, founder and principal of Selldorf Architects. They’ll receive their awards at a March 9 luncheon at The Modern (designed by a Pratt alum, natch), where we have a feeling that pastry chef Marc Aumont—a skilled sugar artist and chocolate sculptor—will whip up a special something to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the school’s founding, ideally served with a generous scoop of his salted butter-caramel ice cream.

Enhance your resume and your vacation photos with the mediabistro.com mothership’s two-day crash course in Adobe Photoshop, back by popular demand. In one screen-intensive weekend (March 3 and 4), you can get up and running on the program of programs—the subject of many an ethical debate—under the guidance of photo editor and photographer Rob Tannenbaum, who has a blackbelt in Photoshop (and a master’s degree in newsroom graphics management). Learn more here.

Can design change the world? Of course. The challenging part is figuring out how to best harness the power of design to make a difference, for clients and causes alike. A pioneer of this tricky, potent, you-know-it-when-you-see-it combination of design thinking and social entrepreneurship has been Worldstudio, the New York-based marketing and design agency that specializes in creating and implementing programs for corporate clients that support their social responsibility platforms. Between projects for the likes of Adobe and The Metropolitan Opera, Worldstudio principal Mark Randall co-founded (with Steven Heller) Impact! Design for Social Change, a six-week summer intensive at the School of Visual Arts that is now in its third year. Meanwhile, interest in the field of design for social impact is surging, and as Randall and friends gear up for a March 1 panel at SVA on the social design job market (a taped webcast will be posted online following the event), we asked him to tell us more about how good design can do good.

How do you define “social design”?
This is a great question, and one that the design community is slowly defining. In the broadest sense, social design uses design thinking and creativity to improve the human condition and to ensure a sustainable future for us all. A social design approach can be applied to a wide range of areas; non-profits and NGOs, civic design, corporate social responsibility, as well as social enterprise and social entrepreneurship.

Was there a particular project or point in your career that got you interested in social design, or was it an area that you gravitated to more gradually?
As a kid growing up in the 1970′s I was engaged by the ecology movement and Woodsy the Owl—”Give a Hoot! Don’t Pollute!” In 1993, David Sterling, who at the time was a partner in the legendary firm Doublespace, approached me to design a logo for a concept business that he was developing. He wanted to create a design studio that incorporated a social agenda into the work that was done on a daily basis. His ideas were unformed at the time, and as we worked on the identity together we discovered that we viewed the world—and design—in much the same way. Our conversations helped to shape what the business could and ultimately would be. Instead of being his designer I became his business partner. David left the business almost ten years ago, but I have continued the work that we do with a great group of collaborators.
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Ready to get serious about that new year’s resolution to “harness the power of social media for fun and profit, but mostly profit”? Prepare to fall out for mediabistro.com’s Social Media Boot Camp, an online conference-cum-workshop that kicks off on February 16. Tomorrow, which also happens to be the 229th birthday of social media pioneer Daniel Webster, is the last day to take advantage of the early bird discount and save on an eight-week program that includes keynote speeches, live interviews, and practical how-to sessions led by social media gurus including Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), Morin Oluwole (Facebook), and Leslie Bradshaw (JESS3). Learn more and register here.

You probably know Allan Chochinov as the core of Core77, the beloved industrial design megasite of which he serves as editor-in-chief. The designer and educator’s latest creation is a new MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. As chair of the MFA in Products of Design, Chochinov has devised the graduate program around a new way of considering the design of artifacts, experiences, sustainability, strategy, business, and point of view. The design star-studded faculty ranges from Paola Antonelli (MoMA) to John Zapolski (Fonderie47). “We have created a program that I feel represents a optimistic, rigorous, and future-forward step in the future of design education,” he says, adding that applications are now being accepted for the inaugural class. “We are looking for all kinds of applicants: the highly-skilled, seeking more meaningful applications; the deeply-knowledgeable, looking for greater scale and impact; the passionate, looking for more rigor and process; and of course the iconoclastic, looking for a home.” In answering our seven questions, Chochinov gives us the full scoop on the program, discusses some of his own career highlights, and proves that unwieldy edibles (or useless machines) make the best gifts.

1. What led you to create the MFA in Products of Design program?
I’ve been teaching design at the college level for 17 years now, and I’m passionate about students, creativity, and point of view. When SVA approached me about creating a new MFA program, it was an incredible opportunity to spend time researching, conceiving, and collaborating on a program that would represent future practice and equip students with the skills and fluencies that the world will demand of them. The program that resulted, I feel, is at the sweet spot of business, making, storytelling, and stewardship. It’s a program that aims to engage, ennoble, and empower. It’s also going to be a ton of fun.

2. What can prospective students expect from the program, in terms of coursework, faculty, and experience?
The program is rigorous but joyful, multi-disciplinary and multi-sensorial. There are no grades. Most of the classes are in the evenings. Several classes happen off-site (the Design Research and Integration class is held at IDEO in SoHo, for example; the Materials Futures class is held at Material ConneXion). Two of the classes are co-mingled with MFA Interaction Design students. There’s our new Visible Futures Lab fabbing space next door, and a city brimming with design making, design thinking, and design doing right outside the door. We’re dedicating a lot of the architecture and curriculum to food and food systems, and we’ve got a faculty comprised of some of the most fascinating, progressive practitioners in design.

3. What’s been the most challenging and/or rewarding aspect of working on the program?
The most challenging aspect has been to clarify this very fuzzy place where I think design needs to be right now. (That last sentence is a bit fuzzy in itself!) Referencing the challenges inherent in designing for systemic, interconnected conditions, faculty member Manuel Toscano remarked to me that “we will need students who are comfortable being uncomfortable.” I think that’s very true. Design is at an incredible moment right now, but the challenges of production, consumption, labor, resilience…these demand a nimble kind of practice.
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