Get a glimpse of the SDCT's Spring 2023 Showcase. For the first time, the Department of Design joined forces with the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies for a unique gathering of Austin’s creative community.

Zac DeLane's family has called Texas home for four generations, and from small towns and big cities, their family has roots in a lot of different towns in Texas. This piece was designed to showcase Zac's family roots and history, while also serving as a centerpiece for their backyard space.

Murfi is a space-saving furniture system for kids living in crowded housing. By including storage, a bed, and a desk, it aims to provide the essentials for a kid while also offering a sense of personalization.

The degree to which children grow up in crowded housing is a neglected but potentially important aspect of social inequality. Children are particularly dependent on and influenced by their home environments, as they use the space for socialization, skill development, and identity formation. Additionally, households are becoming increasingly exposed to crowded housing conditions, with levels higher than those prior to the Great Recession, making this a growing issue that needs to be addressed, and Murfi does just that.

Quaint Relics is an ongoing speculative exploration of electronic waste and its potential for reuse in different contexts such as furniture. Adapting e-waste into unconventional new products in this manner is intended to spark discussion regarding our consumption and disposal of electronics.

A multi-faceted exploration of daily life. We question our existing relationships with the world and seek new perspectives of the mundane.

Blue Violet is a book of deeply personal and lush photographs, drawings, and writing by Cig Harvey. It was a labor of joy for Design Professor Jeanette Abbink to interweave Harvey's lush, color-saturated photography with a motley of textual forms on French-fold style pages bound within the moody printed cloth hardcover.

Every researcher had mentors who helped assimilate them into a life of scholarly work, and the process continues with their future mentees. These comprise the roots and branches of the academic tree of a single researcher. If we let these ancestors’ and descendants’ genders affect these trees like a “wind,” most curl nearly to the earth. To set these trees growing upright again we visualize giving differential weight to male and female researchers.

Against the Current reassesses contemporary societal behaviours and invites viewers to consider new paths forward. Featuring thesis works from four graduating M.F.A candidates in Design, this exhibition explores analogue antidotes, challenges restrictive historical cycles, offers tools for BIPOC design students, and unpacks emerging autonomy. Integral to the work is a spirit of rebellion and resilience-a rejection of structural, cultural, and traditional restraints. 

Once a Glacier is a VR film that tells the story of a relationship between a girl and a glacier. As the girl grows older, the existence of the ice is threatened, and the viewer is taken on a journey through her seemingly futile efforts to protect what was once an entire glacier. 

Brand guidelines for Pizza Kittyz, a pet-friendly pizza shop with the intention of making their clients purr with joy. This brand was born thanks to B.F.A. Design student Luis Angeles' little sister, who scribbled a logo onto a cardboard box as they were playing pizza shop.

Lattice weaves together the thesis works of eight graduating M.F.A. candidates in Design, each probing the fragile connections between people, cultures, and environments. The projects sustain overlooked histories, reclaim informal spaces, challenge extrovert-centered norms, and imagine new ways of belonging. They navigate discomfort in air travel, explore trust in AI, and reframe human relationships with more-than-human worlds. Through cultural memory, speculative futures, and everyday artifacts, the exhibition reveals design as a latticework of resilience, critique, and care. 

Designed by Ishita Sisodia (B.A. Design '24), Rehab Bud is a two-sided platform that allows physical therapy patients to record their exercises and get real-time AI feedback on the accuracy of their form, while also tracking their recovery progress and holding them accountable.