Monday was the first day of the offical “Interaction Design Program” The pilot year has finished and its time for some fresh energy and new talent at CIID! However before the Pilot Year ended I was lucky enough to get to write a sum up of our exams and graduation for the CIID Website. This is what I wrote…….
The interaction Design Pilot Year aimed to be a fast paced, collaborative, experimental and energetic year, and the last three months have been no exception to this! Since June, the pilot year students have been working on their final year projects, a chance for them to go solo, put all they have learnt into practice and further develop who they are as individual designers.
This all came to a climax on the 24th, 25th and 26th of August when they presented their final projects to a board of external examiners including Bill Moggridge (IDEO) Gillian Crampton Smith (IUAV) and Mikal Hallstrup (Designit) Over the three days each student took it in turn to step up onto the podium and present their project process, from initial explorations, to iterative prototypes to the final designs. The diversity in project themes ranged from sustainable service solutions to products that have personalities to new cameras for children. It was amazing to see the individual styles of each student really shining through, each project was unique in their very own way, and showed a different approach towards interaction design.
After presenting their projects the students received comments and critique from the examiners. The feedback proved to be very thoughtful and constructive, and provoked interesting discussions on how the projects could be developed further. All in all an amazing experience for the students to present to such down to earth yet highly experienced design professionals.
When all the exams were finished on the final day, there was just enough time for a quick change of clothes before the graduation ceremony! The ceremony began with a round of inspirational speeches from Professor John Heskett, our external examiners and Simona Maschi (Head of Program) The students then took to the stage once again and were presented with their certificates and a crown of leaves, in fitting with our “From Adam to Yves” exhibition! It was a very symbolic moment!
After multiply rounds of (emotional, yet happy) photographs, and trying to re-create the group photo we took on the first day of the pilot year, we sat down to a hygge dinner to celebrated the brilliant success of the year and toasted to the future of the Interaction Design program.
Check out the video!