FROM LANGUAGE TO VISUAL LANGUAGE

My teaching began in language classrooms, working with students learning to speak in a new tongue. Over time my attention moved from spoken language to visual language: how images, objects, spaces and interfaces carry meaning. The two are closer than they seem. Both are about how people make sense of the world and of each other.

DESIGN IS WORLD-CREATING

Everything we design, whether a chair, an interface, a campaign, a service or a policy, impacts how someone else will move, pay attention and live. My goal is to help students see that they are already shaping the world, for themselves and for others. That is both a privilege and a responsibility.

START WITH QUESTIONS AND WITH PEOPLE

Learning takes place when students internalize knowledge and apply it in ways that matter to them. In every class I pose questions, share feedback and open conversation, because understanding the social, emotional and behavioral needs of others begins with listening. My own practice grew from field research and human-centered design work. I encourage students to keep the people they design for in mind and to listen before drawing conclusions.

BROAD AND DEEP

I build every project around two modes of investigation. Broad investigation surveys a wide range of materials, techniques, media and ideas. Deep investigation narrows to a few of them and refines those with uncommon detail. Learning to move between the two, and knowing when to switch, is one of the most durable skills a designer can have. Over time, it becomes a way of meeting the world at large with a watchful eye and an open mind.

MAKE TO THINK

Alongside both runs a habit of acting early. Students sketch, model and prototype early, long before an idea feels ready. A quick and rough prototype tested with a real person teaches more than a week of discussion. Two decades of working in video, photography and painting have taught me that seeing is a skill that can be trained and should be an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

NARRATIVE, METAPHOR AND MEANING

From linguistics I bring semiotics and narrative, and I encourage students to let story and metaphor carry an idea further. I invite them to imagine personalities and properties for the elements they design with. Skeptics find this strange at first. With time, encouragement and support, I have watched even the most hesitant students produce work that is complex, layered and truly their own.

EVERY STUDENT BRINGS A WORLD

As an interculturalist, I value the learning styles and perspectives, individual and cultural, that students bring into the room. I have taught students adjusting to a new country and a new language who turned their relocation stories into art and design work. They transformed stress into cultural insight that enriched the whole class. Different backgrounds are not something to accommodate. They are the ground for designing in, and for, a shared world.

CRITIQUE AT THE HEART OF THE STUDIO

Critique is where students find their voice. Whether we are looking at experimental typography, collage or motion work, I ask students to respond to each other's work before I weigh in. Without critique there is nothing to push against, and past success quietly becomes a crutch. My hope is that peer dialogue becomes inner dialogue: a habit of empowering self-critique that stays with them long after the course ends.

MINDFUL DESIGN IN THE AGE OF AI

Speed is easy now. Care must be cultivated. My students increasingly design alongside AI tools. I teach them to work with these tools responsibly, without being shaped by them, to stay the author and to name their own judgment. I want them to ask not only "can we make this?" but also "should we, and for whom?" I build in moments of pause, such as reflection after each sprint and critique that asks why as well as how. I also make space to consider who is affected beyond the immediate user, including future generations and the environment.

WHAT I HOPE STUDENTS CARRY FORWARD

I aim to create a learning environment that is both exciting and rigorous, where students feel safe voicing their needs and opinions. I want them to leave empowered, enthusiastic and passionate about their creative futures, carrying curiosity about people, the courage to make before they know, and the care to consider what their work does in the world. Underneath it all is the question that guides my art and my teaching: what does it mean to be human, and how do we design a world we can all thrive in?