The Poster Presentations and Opening Reception will be in the Rowe Lobby and Gallery. Presenters will briefly introduce themselves and their poster topic before the show.

Black maximalism, whether expressed in elaborate braided hairstyles, richly patterned textiles, or hip-hop’s highly stylized visual language, rejects the pressure to conform and asserts an unapologetic presence. These visual choices are acts of self-care, cultural continuity, and reclamation of space.

This presentation explores a class project in partnership with the Iowa State University Brew Lab. Students created a comprehensive brand identity while adhering to university brand guidelines and addressing stakeholder challenges. The session highlights project goals, stakeholder collaboration, and key takeaways for students, showcasing experiential learning in real-world branding.

Faculty developed the structure for a team-teaching approach to its capstone courses. Challenges were substantial but, benefits to students, faculty and the program emerged. Outcomes of this structure have fostered faculty dialog and program re-evaluations. It has become a program tool for collaborative, formative assessment.

This presentation explores how human-centered design research and practices can transform design education. Through a course where students partnered with two non-profits, they practiced empathy and co-design to create meaningful, community-centered solutions. The experience fostered personal growth, emphasized design’s role in social justice, and prepared students as mindful, collaborative, purpose-driven professionals.

Artificial intelligence in design education is often treated instrumentally, ignoring ethical concerns. Designers shape AI systems with societal impact, necessitating critical engagement with AI ethics. This paper explores AI bias, AI snake oil, and alignment, proposing a framework to integrate ethical AI principles into design curricula for responsible innovation.

As AI becomes embedded in design education, understanding how it shapes collaboration and creative thinking is essential. This study explores strategies to maintain a balanced learning environment where technology enhances, rather than overshadows, critical thinking, teamwork, and student-driven creativity within design classrooms and collaborative projects.

When shaped by privilege, design often neglects marginalized communities, heightening inequities in disaster contexts. This paper explores mindfulness to counter exclusion by centering affected voices. It advocates for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)-informed design, integrating life-centered and participatory methods to create resilient, sustainable MHM solutions, ensuring equity, dignity, and long-term impact.

Design educators can adapt a mindful approach to help students respond to the complexities in today's world. The presentation focuses on students’ project designing symbolic icons and broadsides for historical & contemporary movements through research, storytelling, and visual communication utilizing mindfulness principles like curiosity, empathy, and attentiveness in the process.

Snack break in the Rowe Lobby!

Yin and Yang, Five Phases, Eight Characters and Four Pillars of destiny, Feng Shui, do any of these terms sound familiar to you?  Yes?  No?  Please come to join Dr. Zhang in adopting Eastern numerology in mindful design, as well as to have a better understanding of your inner self.

This workshop explores visual language through symbols, signs, and semiotics. Attendees will experiment with rebuses, pictograms, and ideograms to create narratives using pre-cut stamps, ink, and drawing tools. Through hands-on printmaking, participants will examine how meaning can shift based on audience perception. The session includes a brief presentation and concludes with original artwork attendees can take home.

A workshop that explores how we perceive the world through color and print. Using only black and red ink, participants will experiment with "Perceptual Halftone Printing" to create the appearance of full color. Through digital exercises and hands-on printing, attendees will engage with the intersection of perception, materiality, and design.

This panel proposal explores current undergraduate graphic design education, analyzing student survey data to identify curriculum gaps in history, theory, research, and methodology. Discussion topics include self-motivation, learning progression, and industry alignment with the academic disciplines. Panelists will discuss strategies to balance academic depth, creative freedom, and technological advancements in shaping future design education.

This paper examines how AI and immersive design can enhance environments for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). By integrating adaptive technology and sensory-sensitive design, the research aims to improve accessibility to interventions, foster collaboration, and create inclusive spaces that support the developmental needs of ASD children.

This paper examines how AI and immersive design can enhance environments for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). By integrating adaptive technology and sensory-sensitive design, the research aims to improve accessibility to interventions, foster collaboration, and create inclusive spaces that support the developmental needs of ASD children.

This presentation explores how generative design tools can foster critical engagement rather than passive execution in design education. By prioritizing experimentation, process-driven learning, and conceptual development, students learn to navigate emerging technologies with autonomy, questioning algorithmic influence while using computation as a medium for storytelling, inquiry, and creative exploration.

This presentation will reflect on the opportunities of incorporating a Human-centered approach into a UX/UI course to form students who design beyond aesthetics and center human needs. It will showcase the prototypes for an app geared to assist college students in overcoming challenges in their personal and academic lives.

Join us for lunch as we provide a brief presentation followed by small group discussions on UCDA Design Education's strategic priorities, initiatives, and activities. We will share updates on what we have been working on this year, as well as information on what is coming up in the future.

This presentation will share experiences from a collaborative studio for industrial design and nursing students, aimed at cultivating mindfulness and making significant contributions by introducing students to the concept of HL and the social determinants of health. We will discuss our observations on student experiences across both majors.

This session explores how integrating mindfulness into the design process can guide students to create advertising campaigns that balance client goals with social responsibility. Key exercises emphasize empathy, ethical considerations, and sustainability, empowering students to shape campaigns that inspire positive social and environmental change.

This presentation explores how slow design principles can challenge the hyper-productive culture in academia, particularly in studio-based courses. Drawing from the Slow Movement, it proposes a shift toward more mindful pedagogy focusing on care, intentionality, and community, fostering more meaningful and healthy experiences for faculty and students.

Digital native students spend most of their waking hours in a frenzy of multi-tasking on digital devices, leaving them disengaged from the moment and their physical surroundings.

To provide a break from this cycle, we have created a series of analog-based workshops for our second-year graphic design students.

Summit Kick Off and Opening Remarks

Summit Kick Off and Opening Remarks

Summit Kick Off and Opening Remarks