Josh Glenn
Josh Glenn is a pioneering commercial semiotician with 25 years of experience. He offers unique insights into world-class companies (such as the Coca-Cola Company, Ubisoft, Colgate and Prudential) about everything from brand strategy and marketing to design and innovation.
He is also a writer, editor and publisher. He currently serves as editor of Radium Age, a book series from MIT Press, and publisher of the websites HiLoBrow and Semiovox. He has written or edited more than a dozen books, including most recently More Voices from the Radium Age (MIT Press, 2023), Lost Objects (Hat & Beard, 2022) and The Adventurer’s Glossary (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021).
In collaboration with Rob Walker, he has spent years exploring the emotional investment that humans make in inanimate objects via Significant Objects (2009–12) and Project:Object (ongoing) and two books.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
ID 251G-01
GRADUATE THESIS MAPPING AND NARRATIVE I
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Graduate Thesis Communications I is a studio course run in parallel with our sibling studio course which focuses on design research methods. Together, we will spend the fall semester casting about, planning and prototyping towards some kind of design proposal or product for execution in the spring. We think about writing in two ways. First as a design tool and second as a communication tool. On the tool for design side, we think about the many ways that writing can help clarify and quickly test out ideas. We think about writing as a form of rapid prototyping alongside sketching, model making, etc. We talk about what writing is good at, when other methods might be more useful, and when to combine methods. We use writing to help clarify and crystalize the thesis plan. On the communication side, we think about the many ways that writing surrounds a designed object (as a proposal, as sales copy, as instructions to users, as specs for manufacture, as criticism, etc.). We think about the audiences for those various kinds of writing and how to think about what they want and need. We talk about the thesis as a tool for explaining the design but also as a tool for helping you advance your career goals. At the end of the course, you will have a partially complete draft of your thesis. which will set you up for an excellent spring.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design
ID 251G-02
GRADUATE THESIS MAPPING AND NARRATIVE I
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Graduate Thesis Communications I is a studio course run in parallel with our sibling studio course which focuses on design research methods. Together, we will spend the fall semester casting about, planning and prototyping towards some kind of design proposal or product for execution in the spring. We think about writing in two ways. First as a design tool and second as a communication tool. On the tool for design side, we think about the many ways that writing can help clarify and quickly test out ideas. We think about writing as a form of rapid prototyping alongside sketching, model making, etc. We talk about what writing is good at, when other methods might be more useful, and when to combine methods. We use writing to help clarify and crystalize the thesis plan. On the communication side, we think about the many ways that writing surrounds a designed object (as a proposal, as sales copy, as instructions to users, as specs for manufacture, as criticism, etc.). We think about the audiences for those various kinds of writing and how to think about what they want and need. We talk about the thesis as a tool for explaining the design but also as a tool for helping you advance your career goals. At the end of the course, you will have a partially complete draft of your thesis. which will set you up for an excellent spring.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design