Tag Archive for Digital Design Studio

Grant Supports Digital Design at Wesleyan

by Olivia Drake • April 23, 2019

On April 9, members of the campus community gathered in Downey House to discuss how digital design might evolve at Wesleyan in the near future. At left, Nicole Stanton, dean of the Arts and Humanities Division and associate professor of dance, answered questions from the audience. (Photo by Olivia Drake)

With the support of a new $500,000 grant, Wesleyan will be able to expand its Digital Design Studio and integrate technology more fully into the University’s arts program.

The Sherman Fairchild Foundation awarded Wesleyan the grant in March. It will be applied over four years.

“We’re very grateful for this award,” said Nicole Stanton, dean of the Arts and Humanities Division and associate professor of dance. “The grant will enable Wesleyan to integrate technology more fully into our arts program, support the innovative work of our faculty and students, and expand cross-disciplinary opportunities within the arts and with other disciplines.”

The funds will specifically help with the creation of a new comprehensive Digital Design Commons (DDC), which will include renovations of the current Digital Design Studio housed in the Davison Art Center. The studio has already become a gathering space for faculty and students working in photography, architecture, graphic design, scenic design, typography, animation, and various other media. The new commons will include space for studio photography, art documentation, video and motion capture (i.e., green screening), media projection, and 3-D scanning. In addition, Wesleyan will be able to create a large, multidisciplinary space to be used for teaching and projects that promote greater collaboration among students.

by Olivia Drake • November 11, 2014

Wesleyan received a $150,000 grant from the George I. Alden Trust to support a Digital Design Studio currently under construction in the Davison Art Center. The interdisciplinary Digital Design Studio will equip Wesleyan students and faculty to address current and future needs with the tools to imagine and test new frontiers in design.

The Digital Design Studio will become a new hub within Wesleyan’s existing facilities in the Center for the Arts. The studio will provide a much-needed space for digital production for students enrolled in numerous studio arts courses and design-related fields. Emblematic of liberal education at Wesleyan, the new digital design studio is envisioned as a crossroads for faculty and students working across those disciplines that have become part of the massive digitization of design and the humanities. The new space will not only provide students with the tools, procedures, and techniques of digital design, but also the theoretical background needed to bridge the divide between what they are learning in their humanities and arts classes and the tremendous shifts going on in the digital world. Read more about the project in this News @ Wesleyan article.

The George I. Alden Trust was established for the general purpose of “the maintenance of some charitable or philanthropic enterprises” with particular expressed interest in “the promotion of education in schools, colleges, or other educational institutions.” The Trust supports institutions that demonstrate a combination of educational excellence, exciting programming, and efficient and effective administration.

New Digital Design Studio to Bridge Divide between Arts, Technology

by Kate Carlisle • November 10, 2014

Contractors are working to restore and transform the Davison Art Center’s carriage house section into a Digital Design Studio. The space formerly housed the Art Library.

Imagine a place where Wesleyan students with a panoply of interests – art, photography, architecture, graphic design, and theatrical design, to name but a few – can work together in a dedicated digital space. Where faculty and students can bridge the divide between traditional arts and humanities courses and the tremendous shifts taking place in the technological world.

The new lab will feature new computers, scanners and 3-D printers. (Photos by Dat Vu ’15)

That place is no longer imaginary. A $150,000 grant from the George I. Alden Trust will support a Digital Design Studio in the repurposed carriage house section of the Davison Art Center. Beginning with about eight classes taught by three or four faculty members, the digital design program, slated to open in January 2015, will ultimately include intensive summer programming, reaching dozens more students by its second year.

“More than a simple grouping of high-end computers and software for arts classes, this will become a crossroads for faculty and students,” said Dean of Arts and Humanities Andrew Curran. “Together they will work across a variety of disciplines that are part of the massive digitization of design and humanities.”

The carriage house housed the Art Library until 2013, when the library’s holdings were consolidated at Olin. The grant will be used to repurpose and renovate the space and to purchase technology including scanners, 3-D printers and special software.

Wesleyan’s proposal for the Digital Design Studio envisions that eventually students will be able to solicit and accept projects from outside the university, gaining valuable career experience through non-academic digital design work.

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