Faculty / visiting experts
The Director and visiting experts will be available for face-to-face instructions in seminars and within the frame of informal discussions:
Director
Jay Rutherford was born in Canada precisely in the middle of the 20th century.
His ancestors -- sign painters and opticians -- taught him about communicating and seeing and he's been busy with those activities his whole life.
Jay's uncle Peter was a commercial artist just around the time that that occupational group was changing its name to graphic designer.
This additional family inspiration led Jay to study "graphics" at the end of the sixties.
After trying on various hats in the graphic arts industry, and having reached the ripe old age of 35, he decided to go back to school and
study visual communications (yet another occupational group name change).
After freelancing in ad agencies (--), running his own design studio (+) and teaching design (++) for a few years,
a call to Old Europe brought Jay to the home of Gutenberg and the Bauhaus.
Ten years somehow flew by in Weimar while he taught typography and information design (wait,
isn't that another occupational name change?), before trying out northern Italy as a place to live and work in 2003.
Longing for wider horizons (geographic, professional and cultural), Jay returns to Weimar in the Fall of 2005.
The Information Design eXchange project (idX), as well as other research initiatives, will keep him busy.
Experts
Gerhard Ganster
Gerhard Ganster graduated in mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Vienna 1981 and worked as project manager responsible for the construction of power stations in North Africa. Back home he became development manager in a R&D group for up-to-date combustion technologies. Work has made him sensitive to environmental problems, so he switched his profession to raise people's awareness for environmental issues. Currently he is manager in a company working in the field of the recycling and the utilisation of waste. Since 1988 he is involved in development cooperation activities for and in Cape Verde.
http://www.8ung.at/calheta
Prof. Kay Hartmann
Kay Hartmann is a professor of graphic design at Columbia College Chicago.
She has a master's degree in communication science from Northwestern University,
and her areas of inquiry include information design and symbology.
http://www.colum.edu/undergraduate/artanddesign/
Walter Heimerl
Hiking experiences since more than thirty years, about 25 years hiking guide. I worked for ten years in the Austrian Environmental Protection Agency, dept. Environmental Planning and Nature Conservation, following six years as host of an alpine hut. At present I am an independent hiking expert, advising communities, tourism associations and governments on nature trails, hiking paths and theme ways.
Guiding hikes is not only a question of security. It is also a task of "heritage interpretation" as well as knowing your guests' wishes, needs and expectations.
http://www.wanderexperte.at
Kris Krois
Kris Krois works as a designer in the field of interactive and audiovisual media. He teaches at the Faculty for Design and Art of the Free University of Bolzano (Italy) and at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (Germany). As a designer he is particularly interested in developing tools for people and helping to communicate things that matter.
http://www.kriskrois.com/
Prof. Judith A. Moldenhauer
Judith A. Moldenhauer is an Associate Professor and the Area Coordinator for the Graphic Design program at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, USA. M.F.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Her design work, which focuses on the organizational and navigational aspects of visual and verbal material, ranges from exhibition catalogues and posters for the Detroit Institute of Arts to educational materials for Healthy Start, a US Department of Health and Human Services program to reduce high infant mortality. She currently is a participant in a US/EU FIPSE grant for the exchange of students and faculty on the subject of information design (idX).
Peter Simlinger
Peter Simlinger, after graduation in architecture at the University of Technology, Wien/Vienna moved to London for post-graduate studies at The Bartlett, University College.
The design studio he founded after his return to Vienna in 1967 became Simlinger Informations-Design GmbH. It developed a focus on orientation systems (for hospitals, rail and air traffic and - just now, a historic town in Lower Austria), corporate design (e.g. for the largest Austrian bank) and, most recently, on what may be called multimodal communication systems (a multi-language tourist information and guiding system being among the most recent projects).
Having been President of "GDA Graphik-Design Austria" (now "DA Design Austria") and Chairman of the Austrian Standards Institute's Committee 133 "Graphic Public Information" Peter Simlinger became instrumental founding IIID in 1985/86.
http://www.iiid.net
Silvia Stuppaek
Silvia Stuppaeck works since more than ten years in tourism issues - in the applied research, in education and in regional development. After her studies of sociology she worked on an EU research project about sustainability in urban tourism (5th Framework Programme) and as a researcher at the University for Applied Sciences in Rapperswil (Switzerland).
Education as Trainer (Train the Trainee, certificate). Since 2003, educational work for respect Institute for Integrative Tourism and Development. Since 2004 Student at the Salzburg Management Business School (MBA Tourism and Leisure Management).
Since 2005 director of respect.
http://www.respect.at/index.php?lang=1