Lecturer at Umeå Intitute of Design teaching Interaction Design, Design Methods, Graphic Design, Sustainable Development and Presentation Techniques.
Background
I am a seasoned designer with specialization in Interaction Design, with a rather diverse background from business-to-business marketing. Between 1984-1994, I worked as graphic designer, art director and illustrator with clients such as Disney, LKAB, Mitsubishi, AGA, World Equestrian Games, and Adidas. The first time I came in contact with UID was in 1992 when I gave a one hour lecture on presentation techniques for the first batch of Industrial Design students at UID. After that, the snowball was set in motion and one year later, in 1993, I found myself as a regular part-time guest lecturer at the school, involved in teaching subjects such as; sketching techniques, perspective drawing, construction drawing and photography.
Coming from the two-dimensional world of form-giving in illustration, photography and graphics, I was intrigued by the challenges the design process of three-dimensional products gave me. Ultimately, in 1994, I fell for the temptation, applied to UID - and got accepted. During the first years of my education, I got more and more intrigued by the possibilities of the emerging digitalization of everyday products, and in 1996, I had the opportunity to switch to the new master's programme in Interaction Design. From this moment, the development of the discipline of Interaction Design have been my design interest. Two of the teachers who influenced me the most were Professor Ivan Peciva (Form Studies) and Professor Mike Stott (Interaction Design).
After graduation in 1999, I became an applied design researcher at UID, working with Nokia and Volvo Trucks on wearable technology. In 2001, I started to teach more regurarely in the Interaction Design MFA program, and between 2009 and 2015 I was director of the same program. In parallel with my time at UID, I have also been consulting as an industrial designer within the telecom and IT industry since the 1990s.
What I do at UID
As a design teacher, I am interested in the experiential side of industrial design. Specializing in the aesthetics of interaction design, its practical application, systems thinking, visual semiotics and design ethnography, I have become interested in how classical storytelling can connect these disciplines, to help design teams cope with the complexity of today's design problems.
Talk to me about: