Home
QR Code

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Photo of designer John Vassos

photo of record player

Monday, April 10, 2017 / 3:30 PM, Building 8 Auditorium

Danielle Shapiro

"John Vassos: Industrial Designer"

ABSTRACT -- What should a television look like? How should a dial feel to the touch? This lecture will discuss how industrial designer John Vassos grappled with these questions in the design of radio, television and computers before their forms were solidified. Vassos (1898 - 1985) was an artist and industrial designer who shaped the look of modern media technologies as the Radio Corporation of America's key consultant designer for almost four decades through the rise of radio and television and into the computer era. This richly illustrated lecture draws from original archival research to tell the story of a major force in design for sight and sound in the 20th century. It makes clear that John Vassos, although unheralded and under-appreciated, is a highly significant, early contributor to the field of what would now be called user experience design. Vassos focused on user-centered design to mitigate fear of new technologies, a topic he examined in his important 1931 book "Phobia" written in consultation with psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan.

photo of Danielle Shapiro

SPEAKER -- Danielle Shapiro  is a design historian and the author of the first biography of industrial designer John Vassos, John Vassos: Industrial Design for Modern Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). She has a Ph.D. from the department of Art History and Communications Studies from McGill University and her research on design history has been funded by Fulbright Foundation, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Wolfsonian Research Fellowship. Dr. Shapiro has published in the MIT journal Design Issues, the Archives of American Art Journal, The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Photography, The Encyclopedia of Documentary Film and other publications. Until recently, she was a Senior Program Officer in the Division of Public Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities, in Washington D.C. where she oversaw grants for major museum exhibitions, documentary films, radio programs, and projects in the digital humanities. Her book website is www.johnvassos.com.

Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov