I thought you might be interested in seeing a little of what’s going on in the Design Collaborative class taught by Preeti Ayyangar. Each of the six students in the class was charged with creating a dress based on the results of crossing their research of a culture that has a tradition of paper making with a story of their own personal experience, in order to make a dress that reflects their individuality.

They have experimented with making paper at home, using everything from recycled junk mail to banana puree to onion skin, and have spent a lot of time at …more

Where technologies are changing… make that changing into each other, Portfolio Center alum Robin Fuller, now a Naming and Writing Specialist at worldwide global branding firm Landor/NYC, comes up big. Robin named the new rival to Apple’s iPhone, the Verizon Voyager, which launched last month.

A journalism major in college, Robin concentrated her energies in design at PC but always took courses in writing and poetry. Today she combines both of her interests and talents at Landor to appreciate the verbal aspect of naming, called verbal branding.

She loves what she does and is now a cultural contributor in the …more

People are always asking me what it is that makes Portfolio Center such a unique, special place. It’s true; there really isn’t another school like it out there. No school does education like Portfolio Center.

Case in point: Designer John Bielenberg and writer Rich Binell were here this week to give a workshop and spend time with students in my class. John was our seminar speaker, and before he began his speech, he stopped, looked up from the podium at the students, and said, “I love to come to Portfolio Center. This school is different than any other in the …more

So, on a rainy early Saturday morning while in NY for the review, around 4 a.m., I got out and walked around the city, in no particular direction, until 8 o’clock. In the dark, there is such mystery, and at the edge mystery is always magic.

NYC is a metaphor. It’s organic, a microcosm of humanity…it morphs in front of you.

When I told people about my excursion, they thought it quite abnormal to go out exploring at that early time. Should I sleep my life away? It scares people if you embrace change, if you are constantly seeking… But just …more

As many of you know, BusinessWeek magazine recently launched its redesign. The makeover of the 78-year-old magazine took Boston-based ad agency Modernista! 18 months to complete and drew on the talents of reporters, editors, designers, technologists, and market researchers, as well as advertising, marketing, and circulation specialists.

Changes include a cleaner overall aesthetic, more integrated global coverage, a more comprehensive news digest, and an aggregation of information that’s modeled on the Internet. One of the biggest changes, though, according to design advocate Bruce Nussbaum, is a feature section for great stories and images. Nussbaum says, “As we all know by …more