News
Josh Owen

Decked out with technicolor lights and vibrant animated displays, RIT’s MAGIC Spell Studios soundstage became a runway last week during Beyond Fashion. The rainbow runway featured a diverse collection of garments and wearables crafted by local designers and RIT students across multiple disciplines.

Metaproject is an annual design initiative that pairs students with industry partners to develop products consistent with the Vignelli “Design is One” philosophy.” Students collaborate with new partners and the results are showcased in a global venue.

Designculture talks with Josh Owen, Vignelli Center Director and Vignelli Distinguished Professor of Design.

From commissions for NFLPA and EA Sports to Google and Nike, the creative world of Brian Madden '11 (industrial design) is a collision of fine art and design.

Students who engage with the research collections in RIT’s Vignelli Center for Design Studies can now benefit from studying a comprehensive collection of Swiss posters thanks to a donation from Frederick Jon Burbach. The collection of approximately 350 posters includes the work of 125 of Europe’s finest graphic designers from the past eight decades.

Faculty in RIT’s Modern Languages and Cultures department received an International Research and Studies grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund the development of new materials and curricula for Chinese, Italian, and Spanish courses that focus on STEAM. Associate Professor Zhong Chen, Principal Lecturer Elisabetta D’Amanda, and Department Chair Sara Armengot will spend the next three years developing, testing, and implementing the new materials in the classroom.

For this semester's Metaproject industrial design initiative, students will work with RIT President David Munson to design concepts for a series of outdoor, hands-on museum installations for the Henrietta campus. The outdoor installations will tell the story of RIT in a way that is immersive and engaging to passersby on campus. Each student is tasked with creating a concept for one of the 14 installations. 

Design Milk features industrial design students' senior projects.

Thirteen students worked with Lazzoni to produce contemporary chairs and sofas, with one of the designs now set to move into production with the high-end furniture brand.

Associate professor Melissa Dawson and Clare Maxwell '23 (industrial design) designed a cap and gown using fabric from the Vignelli archives for Josh Owen, director of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies, to wear at commencement.

The Vignelli Center for Design Studies has appointed RZLBD (Reza Aliabadi) as the inaugural Vignelli Center Designer in Residence. This position was created to assist with an upcoming campus project to design and build a series of outdoor interactive exhibits tentatively titled the RIT Museumscape.

Students who took part in Metaproject 13 will have their designs showcased as part of the 2023 New York City Design Week courtesy of their client, Lazzoni. In the fall, students spent the semester working to design seating solutions for the alumnus-owned international furniture company. All of the designs presented will be prototyped by Lazzoni, a first in Metaproject’s history.