Join the Department of Art, Art History, and Design for a lecture by designer and walkthrough critic for the MFA open studios, Michael Elwell, on March 17 at 9 am in room 108, Riley Hall. The lecture is titled, "Design + Innovation."
Michael Elwell is a designer, educator, and entrepreneur. He is currently an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Richmond Institute for Design + Innovation at Western Michigan University. Michael has wide-ranging professional experience, including corporate (at Radio Flyer and Coachmen), consultant (at the design firm Process 4), freelance, entrepreneurial, and academic. His scholarly research focuses on emerging technologies and their influence on the barriers to entry for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Michael has a BFA in Industrial Design from the University of Notre Dame. Along with being the 2005 IDSA Merit Award Winner, Michael also won third place in the International Housewares Association Student Design Competition. His winning concept, a prescription pill container opener and label magnifier, is now licensed to Jokari, Inc. as the “Magnifying Medi-Grip.” The product also was an Honoree in the 2009 Design Defined awards and won Best in Category at the 2010 Housewares Design Awards.
Michael attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a Petullo Fellowship, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2011. His graduate thesis, a safer infant crib, creatively utilized materials to reduce the chances of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death from accidental suffocation. He was honored with the 2011 Teaching Excellence Award, as his students won second and third place in the International Housewares Association Student Design Competition, and another was a Finalist for the International Design Excellence Awards.