BACK STORY:
My hometown is Rochester, N.Y. I have a bachelor’s degree in design studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo. That’s where I started teaching. I have done some form of teaching since then. My entire career has been in this line between teaching and practice. (David also received a master’s in industrial design in 1997 at North Carolina State University.) How I came to work at Iowa State: I came in August 2010 to start the industrial design program. At the time, I was the interim chair of industrial design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga. I had seen this job posted; it was a brand new industrial design program. It started out for me as kind of an interesting sidebar, and the more I investigated the opportunity and the more serious I got about it, the more attractive it became. The first thing that attracted me to it was the ability to start a program from scratch. After leaving here from the interview process, I could see that this was going to be a good place to start a program. The table was set for success. Define industrial design: My own definition is, “It’s the systematic, creative activity that results in products, systems, and services to satisfy commercial goals.” To a lay person I would say, “Industrial design is the activity that creates the products and things you interact with every day.” Classes I teach: I have taught most of the [industrial design] classes. I started out teaching each of the studio classes. In our discipline, the studio is where the rubber meets the road. So it was an important place for me to interject my influence and work closely with mentoring the students. Then when we started the graduate program in 2011 I worked closely with the incoming class of graduate students. This [spring] semester I’m teaching the portfolio and professional practice class. About Iowa State students: We have THE most competitive program in the College of Design. Last year [we had] 185 applications for 36 slots. So [these students] are really talented and really, really, really want to be there. They’re highly motivated. They know that there are 150 other people who want their slots. I like that. When they come in, they are absolutely on fire. Our students are good to each other, and they’re great to work with. They just love the material. Between the beautiful studio environment that we have, the stateof-the-art shop equipment and visualization tools, the internship program, the sponsored projects, the study-abroad program, I am throwing everything I can at them to make them competitive and make sure they have the best possible education. These kids take full advantage. They come back for more. VISIONS WWW.ISUALUM.ORG SUMMER 201 3
DAVID RINGHOLZ: Set for success ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND CHAIR, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, COLLEGE OF DESIGN
They’re humble and earnest and grateful. They’re awesome to work with. So I keep giving ‘em more. At the end of spring 2013, we will graduate our first class ever from industrial design. About my artwork: [I worked with] partners [to develop a company called] “Thing Farm” [in Atlanta]. The concept was cultivating smart and beautiful objects. We wanted to be socially responsible, environmentally responsible, smart, quirky. We got into apparel, lighting, sustainable furniture, and retail display exhibits. Eventually it culminated in doing commercial interiors. First job: Movie usher. That was my first paying job. The very first work I did was with my dad. He was a house painter. You were the lead on the 2012 Smithsonian Foldlife Exhibit: Yes. It was an enormous and expansive undertaking. Iowa State was the only design school to have a proposal accepted. We wanted to do something really special…and I wanted to be
on that team. Starting in January of last year all the way through May when we did the open house, it was all Smithsonian all the time. It went from the casual meeting to meeting twice a week to eventually being completely consuming… It just barely came together by the media opening day. I was determined to drag it across the finish line. It took everything I had to make it happen. But [in May] the actual event hadn’t even started yet. We had to take it apart, we had to package it, we had to catalog it, we had to crate it, we had to put it on the truck, we still had to do all that work. And then we had to take it to D.C. and set it up and staff it for two weeks in the worst possible environment: triple-digit temperatures, dust, over the Fourth of July weekend, with a million-plus visitors. But it was wildly successful. It made the university look so good.
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