designmatters | Where art & design education meets social change.

Designmatters

Welcome to Designmatters at ArtCenter College of Design

Where art & design education meets social change.
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Design for Disaster Response LA Workshop

The Design for Disaster Response LA (DfDR LA) x Designmatters workshop brought together students with professional designers to explore art and design’s role in helping our community recover from the Eaton Fire. Over the two-day workshop, students and designers from the DfDR LA network collaborated on three projects that centered human connection, care and tangible outcomes. The workshop was supported by an AICAD Arts + Wellbeing Mini-Grant, a partnership between AICAD and the Foundation for Art & Healing.
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Designing AI-driven Interventions for Cancer Screening + Prevention

In partnership with Cedars-Sinai Cancer Research Center for Health Equity (CRCHE), this Designmatters studio challenged ArtCenter student teams to research, synthesize, ideate and design an AI-driven navigational tool to help healthcare workers, community organizations and individuals access cancer prevention, screening and care information.
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CITY ANIMALS

In collaboration with the Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy (AFC), a local nonprofit dedicated to conserving and protecting natural open spaces to combat climate change and support wildlife habitats, this Designmatters Transdisciplinary studio engaged students in exploring the challenges of habitat fragmentation through the medium of data visualization.
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From Data to Impact: Designing Community-led Solutions for Cancer Health Equity

In this Designmatters studio, students explored how to help health workers and community organizations utilize publicly available and CRCHE gathered data to identify cancer health equity issues, then bridge these insights to actionable, evidence-based solutions that address the specific needs of local communities.
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Designing for Green Justice: Protecting the White Sage Campaign

In this Designmatters studio, students explored the connections between Los Angeles’ indigenous past, present, and future relationships with native plant life – and the opportunities for non-natives to learn about the land they live on.
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Biodiversity Hotspots: Designing Humanity’s Role in Ocean Conservation

Students collaborated with Conservation International to explore how human-centered design can support ocean conservation and empower coastal communities around the world.
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Igniting Local Change: LGBTQ+ Advocacy for Health Justice

In the Fall of 2023, with the partnership of Cedars-Sinai Research Center for Health Equality, and a grant from the California Department of Public Health, this Designmatters studio challenged ArtCenter students to create a campaign that would encourage LGBTQ+ communities in LA’s South Bay to become advocates for health justice, with a focus on tobacco use.
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Mobile Detection: California’s First Lung Cancer Screening Van

In partnership with Cedars-Sinai Research Center for Health Equality, this Designmatters studio challenged transdisciplinary ArtCenter students to co-create a comprehensive community-based campaign and brand identity for California’s first lung cancer screening van, to be rolled out in Los Angeles and Orange Counties in 2025.
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Never Again 9066: Artists and Designers Against Asian Violence

This Designmatters studio in the Spring of 2023, invited transdisciplinary students to study the unconstitutional incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, known as Executive Order 9066.
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Safe Niños: Holistic Healing Environments at Concepcíon Campus

Designmatters Students were challenged to design holistic environments for a rehabilitation campus in Concepcíon, Chile - transforming the space into a place of learning, empowerment, and healing.
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A GOOD STOPPING POINT: SMOKING CESSATION CAMPAIGNS FOR LGBTQIA+

With a grant from the LA County Department of Health Services, the Cedars-Sinai Research Center for Health Equity joined forces with Designmatters and the Graphic Design Department to challenge ArtCenter transdisciplinary students to develop a campaign advocating tobacco cessation for the LGBTQIA+ communities, which have some of the highest tobacco rates in the United States.
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The (Re)Search for Inclusive Healthcare

Partnered with Cedars-Sinai Research Center for Health Equity, ArtCenter students were challenged to explore a lack of diverse representation in clinical trials. By designing an awareness campaign, the hope is to encourage clinical trial participation with Los Angeles Latino and Korean communities - as well as inform healthcare providers about their own biases.
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Designmatters Project Archive

List of all Designmatters Case Studies in Chronological order.
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Fellowship Program

The Designmatters Fellowship Program embeds top ArtCenter students in host organizations for one full 14-week academic term to work on high-level projects and explore the mission, model and meaning of the host organization’s work.
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Birthing Barriers: Designing for Black Birth Equity

This Designmatters Studio challenged transdisciplinary students to learn about the disparity and dangers facing pregnant Black birthing people in Los Angeles County who are four times more likely than white birthing people to die of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.
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The Designmatters Minor in Social Innovation

The Designmatters Minor in social innovation is a course of study for ArtCenter undergraduate students who want to master a toolkit of design skills and strategies to navigate the complex dynamics of working with communities and designing for social change.
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Bee Lab: Designing for Wild Bee Conservation & Biodiversity

Working with biologists, scientific researchers and community advocates, student teams conducted field research, interviewed experts and conceptualized conservation outreach efforts that would benefit bees and help humans better understand these insects as important ecological links.
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Introduction

The Designmatters educational platform at ArtCenter College of Design joins collaboration with experimentation, experience with reflection, problem-solving with problem-discovery, and purpose with action.

Our Mission

Through research, advocacy and action, Designmatters engages, empowers and leads an ongoing exploration of art and design as a positive force in society.

Digital Synergy: Empowering L.A. Arts Organizations

CITY ANIMALS

Designing Advocacy: Arts Education + Graphic Design Implementation

The students were engaged in very sophisticated research, debate and discussion in this studio, but what really impressed me, in the final production push, was that they were intelligently talking through the options, weighing each decision carefully. The final push was a very mature and professional working team. They worked like a real studio.
Todd Masilko, Associate Professor, Interaction Design

Mobile Detection: California’s First Lung Cancer Screening Van

It Is That Deep: Thoughts on Teaching

Electrifying Equality TDS

These solutions are indeed subjective – this isn’t solving a clear-cut math problem – and that proved to be the most difficult aspect of the project. The solutions, however, do address all the key elements, massaged by the student’s vision.”
Dennis Lee, Faculty, Advertising