Design Educators Conference

When: May 30th, 2024

Where: Vancouver Community College, 250 W Pender St

The RGD invites design educators and researchers from across the country to attend our annual Design Educators Conference to take place in Vancouver May 30th.

Organized in collaboration with the Vancouver Community College, the 2024 conference theme is Compassion, Creativity and Community.

This year's Design Educator Conference will that address fostering student resilience and well-being, agility in design pedagogy and holistic, human-centred design education.

The conference takes place immediately after the RGD's DesignThinkers Conference at the Vancouver Playhouse on May 28 and 29th.

Speakers include:

Ellen Lupton
Ellen is a designer, writer and educator. The all-new third edition of her best-selling book Thinking with Type launched in March 2024. Her other books include Design Is Storytelling, Graphic Design Thinking, Health Design Thinking and Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers. She teaches in the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she serves as Design Chair. She is Curator Emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, where her exhibitions have included Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master and The Senses: Design Beyond Vision.

Talk: Expanding the Canon
This talk explores inclusive ways to teach graphic design history. In place of a linear narrative that progresses smoothly towards European modernism, design history instructors can tell stories that reveal conflict and highlight overlooked voices. Topics like “Pattern and Ornament” and “Futurisms and Dadas” incorporate the work of diverse makers. The Bauhaus was a contradictory endeavour—not a monolithic monoculture. Ellen shares stories drawn from her own classroom teaching and scholarship.

Dr. Elizabeth "Dori" Tunstall
"Dori" is a distinguished design anthropologist, celebrated author, visionary organizational design leader, consultant and coach. As the renowned author of "Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook," she is a path-breaker of progressive approaches that challenge conventional design paradigms that exclude and harm cultural communities. Formerly Dean of Design at OCAD University, and the first Black dean of a Faculty of Design anywhere, Dori's profound commitment to making an expansive impact beyond academia has led her to establish Dori Tunstall, Inc., a firm dedicated to decolonizing and diversifying institutional processes for companies and organizations through corporate education, executive coaching and strategic consulting.

Talk: Of Contexts and Curriculum Transformation: Comparative Decolonizing Design Efforts Between Canada and the United States
In this talk, Dori Tunstall will address the different contexts for decolonizing design efforts in the United States and Canada. Comparing her work at OCAD University and California Institute of the Arts, Tunstall will address how differing political context, educational ethos, and institutional structures affects the promises and possibilities of decolonizing design curriculum. She concludes with tips on what students, faculty, and administration can do to accelerate the changes in their design educational institutions

Pricing*

Early-bird rates
Members: $157.5
Non-Members: $210

Regular rates (After May 3)
Members: $204.75
Non-Members: $262.5

Member Combo: Educators Conference & DesignThinkers Vancouver 2-day in-person pass $498.75
Non-Member Combo: Educators Conference & DesignThinkers Vancouver 2-day in-person pass $698.25

If you have questions, email RGD's Programs Manager, Abdul Omar at programs@rgd.ca.

Travel

ACCOMMODATIONS

DesignThinkers attendees, call the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver at 604 684 3131 or 1 866 540 4452 and mention block code 05242024_167 or use the following booking link.

Fairmont Hotel Vancouver - 900 West Georgia Street, Vancouver BC 

Phone: 1 866 540 4452

$349 per night

TRANSPORTATION

You’ve booked your ticket for DesignThinkers Vancouver, now you just need to get there. We’ve lined up discounts for your plane and train fare.

BY PLANE

PORTER

UP TO 15% DISCOUNT

Promo code: DTVAN15.

Porter Airlines is proud to offer up to a 15% discount on available base fares (with the exception of the lowest class fare during a public seat sale) for travel to and from the DesignThinkers Conference Vancouver 2024. The discounted fares are available for booking from January 11th, 2024 to May 31st, 2024.

Dates of travel to Vancouver from May 26-29 and leaving Vancouver from May 28-31.

Please book online or through your travel agent using promo code DTVAN15.

If you have any questions, email RGD's Programs Manager, Abdul Omar, at programs@rgd.ca.