VPA industrial and interaction design program to announce 360 Competition May 6

The industrial and interaction design (IID) program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ (VPA) Department of Design will challenge students to solve a real-world design problem when it announces its 360 Competition on Friday, May 6, at 1 p.m. in The Warehouse Auditorium, 350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse. The event is free and open to the public.

The 360 Competition is a joint initiative between the IID program and industry collaborators. Each spring, a design brief is proposed by a lead collaborator, who serves as an adviser throughout the project. Junior IID students who elect to take part must address the challenge through comprehensive research, analysis and visionary problem solving. They work on the project over the summer and present their solutions on campus the following fall semester—in their fourth year of the five-year IID program—to a jury of professionals, which selects a winner.

Scott Ryan, president of Brownlee Design in Skaneateles, N.Y., and Greg Smiley, industrial design manager at the Raymond Corp. in Greene, N.Y., will serve as lead collaborators for this year’s project and will announce the design challenge to the students. The event will also honor Philip Stevens ’51, industrial designer and president of Philip Stevens Associates Ltd. in Skaneateles, and his wife, Marguerite, for their longstanding support of the IID program.

For more information about the competition, contact Don Carr, associate professor of industrial and interaction design, at 315-443-2455 or dwcarr@syr.edu.