News

The 2016 Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) International Conference, “Making Things Happen,” was held in Detroit from August 17 to 20, and exciting things certainly happened there for the School of Design’s Department of Industrial Design. On Friday, August 19, Clinical Professor and Chair of the Industrial Design Department Stephen Melamed (BFA ’80, MFA ’82) was named a Fellow of the IDSA. The IDSA Academy of Fellows recognizes members of the Industrial Design community who have gained special respect and affection through distinguished service to the society and to the profession as a whole. As an IDSA Fellow, Professor Melamed joins an elite group of design luminaries that includes Donald Deskey, Niels Diffrient, Jay Doblin, Henry Dreyfuss, Raymond Loewy, Katherine McCoy, Bill Moggridge, George Nelson, and Tucker Viemeister. The conference concluded with the Student Merit Awards resentations. Nicholas Savidge (BDES ’16) received the top award. Savidge advanced to this final regional round of the IDSA Student Merit Awards as the top nominee from the UIC School of Design. This is the third consecutive year that a UIC Design student has been selected for this prestigious award — evidence that the School’s status as an independent School of Design and related curricular advancements are making a national impact on industrial design education. The 2015 winner, Rotimi Solola (BDES ’15), is now a designer at Motorola, and the 2014 winner, Jillian Tackaberry (BDES ’14), is a designer at the firm MNML.   To read the newsletter click here.