BYU will be site of Industrial Design Symposium Feb. 18-19

The Brigham Young University industrial design program will host the Industrial Design Symposium Thursday and Friday, Feb. 18-19, in cooperation with the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Thursday’s events are open to the public and begin at 5:30 p.m. in 214 Crabtree Technology Building. A social will last until 6:30 p.m. when Kasey Jarvis of Nike and Scott Richards of Motorola will lecture.

Jarvis is the senior creative footwear designer at Nike. His lecture, titled “Nike Trash Talk: The First Basketball Shoe Made From Manufacturing Waste,” will begin at 6:30 p.m. Before working at Nike, Jarvis worked with the GM Design Swat Team. He has gone from BYU to designing sneakers for Olympic teams, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash.

Richards’ lecture, “User-centered Design for Public Safety Products,” will begin at 7:45 p.m. Richards, also a BYU alumnus, is a senior contributor to the industrial design team at Motorola. He is currently working on two-way communication products. He has worked for Motorola for 25 years and holds 76 design and utility patents. He is the recipient of several internationally recognized design awards.

“This is going to be a great event,” said industrial design professor Bryan Howell. “I believe this is one of the largest, if not the largest, product design symposiums that’s ever happened in Utah.”

Friday will feature student workshops and presentations for students from various industrial designers including Stuart Morgan of Ethicon Endo-Surgery and Brett Lovelady of Astro Studios. There will also be student portfolio presentations and reviews and panel discussions involving recent BYU graduates. The panel will discuss things they wish they had known while at BYU.

“These are some of the best and brightest in their field,” Howell said. “They are all very diverse and yet, they all excel in their fields. Morgan is one of the smartest designers out there right now. Lovelady is one of the rock stars. All these lecturers are very high-profile and are in high demand. Companies want them to bring their energy and expertise into their product line.”

Students from the Denver Metro State College of Denver and the Art Institute of Colorado will make the trip to hear and visit with these prominent designers.

For more information, contact Bryan Howell at (801) 422-7753 or e-mail him at bryan.howell@byu.edu.

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