Stories

Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Design conference on Tuesday, Doreen Lorenzo, assistant dean of UT Austin’s School of Design and Creative Technologies, said that when the school eliminated the portfolio requirement, it saw a 74% increase in applications, which has in turn helped increase its diversity. 

“We’re not lowering the barriers,” she said. “[We’re] decolonizing things.”

With her Fulbright, Poggio (M.F.A. Design, 2006) will head to Guayaquil, Ecuador — a port city known as a gateway to the Galapagos Islands — where she will be working with students at the Universidad de las Artes. Her dream is to empower students and community members to become informed environmental advocates.

Ashwara Pillai, a Junior majoring in Design, won the inaugural Travis County “I Voted” sticker contest with a design featuring a bluebonnet in the shape of a checkmark. The new sticker, inspired by her own annual encounters with the Texas state flower while growing up in Austin, will be available at all Travis County voting locations for the November 8, 2022 election.

In an animated video, Lanina — a second-generation Holocaust survivor — traces a generational cycle of trauma and silence, while a new series of drawings follows Ukraine’s current tragedy.

The new Buckman Center will allow students to create 'art to be felt and experienced instead of just viewed,' say donors Karl and Nelda Buckman.

Central Texas philanthropists Karl and Nelda Buckman have pledged a significant gift to build an immersive media lab to support students in The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Design and Creative Technologies. Called the Buckman Center, the new research lab will be housed in the Doty Fine Arts Building and will be dedicated to the study of immersive media and the future of design and creative technologies.

Karl and Nelda Buckman are igniting creativity through immersive, experiential art at The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts. Their generous $2 million gift will establish the Buckman Center, an immersive technologies studio and lab dedicated to the collaboration between design and emerging technologies in areas including immersive performance, sound design and recording, and innovation in interdisciplinary arts and entertainment fields.

In Tyler Coleman’s Physical Games course, a new AET offering for Spring 2022, students receive grades for creating, playing, and testing their own games. And like any board game worth the effort of learning the rules, the goal of the class is to stimulate thinking and inspire social interaction while exposing students to the intricacies of game design.

This post was contributed by Luisa Matzner, a Global Ambassador for Spring 2022. Luisa is a second-year design major studying abroad in London, England.

Jessie Contour, Assistant Professor of Arts and Entertainment Technologies at UT, is the Summer Design Camp Director and she spends the month of June helping high school students interested in gaming and animation learn new skills and technology, build a portfolio piece for college admission applications, and have a lot of fun.