Collaborate. Energize. Learn. Solve.

Join us for a rare opportunity to learn a powerful new method of creative problem solving—all while discovering more about yourself, serving your community, and working toward the greater good of all. As a result of our Co-Design Workshop, you can expect to be energized with new insights, empowered with new tools, and invigorated with knowing you’ve done something truly meaningful. You won’t want to miss it.

Two design luminaries will teach participants a collaborative, transferrable process for solving problems—all in support of a local non-profit organization. Guiding the effort will be Pamela Napier, visiting assistant professor of Visual Communication Design at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Joining Pamela is Lee Vander Kooi, who teaches design research methods at Herron School of Art and Design and Bernard Canniffe, who’s well-known for his work with Project M, an ongoing collaborative helping designers build tools to make a difference with their work.

Our problem-solving process will unfold in two parts. On day one, small groups will collaborate in a highly visual, generative exercise designed to help share our understanding of individual values, along with how those values connect to the design process. The second day will focus on creative problem-solving and opportunity-finding, ultimately yielding a way to help our partner organization meet a specific challenge.

That partner organization is Growing Home, a Chicago-based non-profit that offers job training through a non-profit organic agriculture business. Growing Home provides experiential learning opportunities and employment in the horticulture field as well as a unique job readiness curriculum that helps reintroduces participants back into the workforce.

If you’re ready for a meaningful learning experience that will motivate and energize you, the Co-Design Workshop is ready for you. Register today.

Co-Design Workshop Facilitators

Bernard Canniffe
Bernard J. Canniffe is the Chair of the Design Department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). He co-founded PIECE STUDIO in 2008–a collaborative, multidisciplinary social design studio, and is an advisor to the social collaborative group Project M.

He is the recipient of the Graphis: Inspiring Designers for the New Millennium Award, 2000, the Baltimore Step 10 Most Influential Designers Award, and The Joseph Binder Award, 2010. Mr. Canniffe’s work has been published in Graphis, HOW, STEP, Metropolis, GOOD, PRINT, Concept-Indonesia, Design-South Korea and CCPH Perspectives.

Mr. Canniffe has made presentations on design for the common good at international medical, design, and academic conferences throughout the world. He was a presenter at the Cumulus Design Conference in Portugal; National Institute of Design Conference Ahmedabad, India; Willem de Kooning Academie, Holland; Zayed University, Dubai; Osaka University, Japan; Shinghwah University, China; Samsung Design Academy, South Korea; Yale University, Connecticut; P&D Design Conference, Brazil; Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar, and Johns Hopkins University, Maryland. Mr. Canniffe has led design projects and workshops that address socioeconomic and cultural topics, and he has spent the last several years working extensively in the Middle East developing mechanisms to promote cultural acceptance.

Mr. Canniffe, originally from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, has lived in the United States since 1991, and moved to Minneapolis in August 2009. He holds a BA Hons in graphic design from Newport College of Art & Design, University of Wales, and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Pamela Napier
Pamela Napier was appointed to the Visual Communication Design faculty at Indiana University Herron School of Art and Design in 2009, where she teaches in both the graduate and undergraduate curriculums. Pamela's research interests include the integration of values into the design process, design for sustainability and tools and methods for people-centered transdisciplinary/interdisciplinary collaboration. She has presented and deployed her research nationally and internationally, and has given presentations and workshops at design education conferences including Nordes Engaging Artifacts in Oslo, Norway, AIGA Social Studies in Baltimore, MA, and AIGA Response_ability in Toledo Ohio.

Lee Vander Kooi
Lee Vander Kooi was appointed to the Visual Communication Design faculty at the Herron School of Art and Design in 2006. At Herron Lee teaches undergraduate design studio courses across the curriculum. Additionally he teaches design research methods and collaborative action research studio courses in the graduate program.

Lee has delivered presentations and workshops nationally and internationally on collaboration, design process facilitation, and visualization. At Herron, Lee's areas of research interest include exploring how form making might enable and enhance collaborative process skills, how to use technology to facilitate student reflection, and assessment strategies for evaluating mastery of design competencies.

In addition, graduate and undergraduate students from Herron School of Art & Design's Visual Communication programs will be intermixed, facilitating and helping to guide the processes along.

AIGA Chicago thanks event chairs and chapter members, Allison Strauss and Eric Benson, for planning our Co-Design Workshop event!