Category: learning resources

A designer’s guide to harnessing Aesthetics by Luca Iandoli and Giuseppe Zollo

Join us online for a conversation on our new book “Elegant Design” organized by The Institute for International Communication and the St. John’s University Design Factory

Authors: Dr. Luca Iandoli, Collins College of Professional Studies, St. John’s University and Giuseppe Zollo, University of Naples Federico II (Italy), Moderator: Prof. Aaris Sherin, MFA, St. John’s College of Arts and Sciences

Visual information is everywhere. We are constantly immersed in a flow of visual data that reshapes our social and inner world. Companies and individuals are competing to conquer the public’s scarce attention by inventing distinctive visual formats to stand out from the crowd. How can designers, inventors, and product managers create designs that are quick to process as well as meaningful, unique and memorable in an age characterized by constant information overload?

The answer is to think aesthetically. Research insights at the intersection between cognitive science and art studies demonstrate that our minds can effectively process visual complexity by using aesthetic pleasure and judgement as a guide. Analysing the work of great artists and designers from the perspective of how our mind appreciates beauty, Elegant Design identifies actionable aesthetic strategies that will help you to design products and user experiences that are useful, beautiful and meaningful.

Join us on Zoom on April 22, 1200 EST at this link: https://bit.ly/3tfusLh, Meeting ID 236 029 0430, Pass w: 9qWOrL 

Discount code GLR 9XUUS applicable for webinar participants for purchases from: https://bit.ly/3tfNXDw

Iandoli, L., Piantedosi, L., Salado, A., & Zollo, G. (2018). Elegance as complexity reduction in systems design. Complexity, 2018.

Salado, A., Iandoli, L., & Zollo, G. (2016, July). Painting systems: from art to systems architecting. In INCOSE International Symposium (Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 773-787).

Iandoli, L., Zollo, G. (2019), Complessità del mondo e necessità dell’arte, In: Capucci, P.L and Simoni, S., Arte e complessità, Noemi edizioni

Iandoli, L., Zollo, G. (2018), The Age of Aesthetics, presentation at Aalto University Venture program

Iandoli, L., Zollo, G. (2018), Think as an artist: Creativity for the Design of effective products and service, ICSB Certificates, https://icsbglobal.org/c-i-certificate/

This two-day workshop organised with the support of Alan Advantage is dedicated to managers, entrepreneurs, designers, and visual communication professionals who want to develop an empathic approach to the development of new products and content. Empathy is introduced through the analysis of how users deal with complexity. We use Art and Design masterpieces to illustrate how aesthetic reasoning helps to handle complexity. Finally we provide participants with methods on how to achieve good complexity through labs and site visits in which we apply lessons from painting, photography, and storytelling to interface design.

click here for the program

A list of key readings that inspired us and our approach

Continue reading “Essential readings”

This course offers an alternative and multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of complex systems that is complementary to traditional systems engineering and product design. The pedagogic approach blends theories from cognitive science, aesthetics and art, behavioral economics, and design thinking with experiential learning based on the analysis of visual art masterpieces through museum visits, visual arts labs, and writing workshops.

Previous editions delivered at Aalto University (Finland), Stevens Institute of Technology (USA), St John’s University (USA), University of Naples Federico II (Italy)

Continue reading “Course: The art of simplicity”