Guest Lecture

This past Thursday, October 26th, students in Prof Carvalho’s DES.410: Product Design 2 class learned more about the prolific and thorough design practice of SFSU Design Master’s program alum, Scott Drapeau. Scott’s works on health and hygiene inspired the students who, this Fall semester, are working on two health-related projects: Homecare Devices (completed), and Health and Climate Crisis (ongoing).

Drapeau’s ample skillset and rigorous attention to a complete design process – from problem-setting and research, to fabrication, usage and recycling – facilitated an engaged conversation about methods, techniques, market expectations, and future career plans after graduation.
 

School of Design, April 17^th 2023.

Students in both sessions of Prof Fernando Carvalho’s DES.505 Senior Design Project had a lecture/workshop focused on how to professionally present their creative projects, developed within and beyond their time at San Francisco State. The activity was led by Prof. Michael Swoboda, an experienced Visual Communication designer and seasoned academic, with many accolades and years of professional experience.

Prof. Swoboda shared a number of outstanding exemplars from his students at Saint Louis Community College at Meramec, where he is the Graphic Communications Program Director. Michael has additionally showed some professional work of his own, as well as demonstrated some practical techniques, using our students’ works in his live demos.

About the Guest Speaker

Michael Swoboda (MFA in Design from the University of Notre Dame) is a Professor at the Design, Visual, and Performing Arts Department at St. Louis Community College at Meramec in Kirkwood, Missouri where he directs and teaches for the NASAD accredited Graphic Communications program.

Professor Swoboda has spent his career in education, commercial digital imaging, and graphic communications. He has taught classes, delivered lectures, and created and conveyed workshops at colleges and universities and for institutions and corporations. He has a variety of commercial and academic clients for which he has designed books, catalogs, wayfinding and branding, and on-line media. He has been recognized and awarded by the American Association of Museums for exhibition catalogs he designed and has been honored with multiple teaching accolades including the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award, The Faculty Lecture Award, and Professor of the Year.

School of Design, February 14^th 2023.

This semester, students in Prof Fernando Carvalho’s DES.410 Product Design 2 class will be participating in the Biodesign Challenge (www.biodesignchallenge.org), an international competition promoting the integration of design, innovation, and biotechnology. This is the very first time San Francisco State will be a part of this prestigious event, taking place in late-June, in New York City.

In order to support the students’ learning process, and to equip the design teams with complementary knowledge stemming from the intersecting areas of design, biology, and engineering, the class hosted a guest lecture by the award-winning designer Henrique Monnerat. Mr Monnerat shared his approach to bionics and biomimicry, showing some of his projects developed during his Master’s research degree in Germany. His insights on how designers can give shape and purpose to scientific concepts via creating and executing inventive ideas were inspirational to our Industrial Design students, in their efforts to explore the emerging field of biodesign.

About the Guest Speaker

Henrique Monnerat is a Brazilian Product Designer and educator based in Monterey, California. He began his career as an industrial designer in 2007 when he joined the Institute for Design-Oriented Innovation ITD-Offenbach to perform R&D projects in biomimetic design (machinery and components inspired by nature). In this Institute, he was responsible for designing new concepts of pneumatic actuators for the German company Festo AG and new bionic-inspired damping systems for the German company Rittal AG. Also in Europe, Henrique Monnerat worked for two years as a junior product designer in the Dutch design company FLEX/Design, participating in more than 100 projects for large companies such as Tefal, TNT Post, Grolsch, Skil, Mitchum, Ambipur and Albert Heijn. Helped the office receive three major design awards, the Red Dot Award for packaging spices from Verstegen company, Goed Industrieel Ontwerp Award for designing Ingenio collapsible pots handles for Tefal company, and the portable brewer Grolsch Cheersch Beer Tap.

Back in Brazil, Henrique started to work as an independent designer, as a consultant for technology-oriented projects, and to teach design practice at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. In 2012, he co-founded Designoteca.com, an initiative that provides training resources, methods, and curriculum planning tools for educators to plan and implement an effective Makerspace within their classroom settings.

Henrique Monnerat graduated in Industrial Design from the School of Arts and Design Offenbach am Main in Germany and has a German equivalent of a master's degree in Biomimicry from the same design school.