SVA MFA Products of Design

First years killing it at the parade! 🎃 🔪 🍬

Great weather, better company at . 📸:

Dear Prospective Students,

Our wonderful Department Chair and Director of Operations will be participating in a variety of National Portfolio Day events across the country.

We invite you to attend the events in Chicago, NYC, and online to receive valuable guidance & feedback. This is also a great opportunity to get to know our program better.

Chicago: 10/19 10-2pm CST with Julia

NYC: 11/10 12-4pm EST with Allan

Virtual: 11/17 5-9pm EST with Allan

Check out the amazing Modern Geometry Jewelry Stand designed by PoD’s own, for sale now at

Congratulations to PoD’s very own and for being shortlisted by industry experts for the .sthread Global Creative Graduate Showcase 2024 in collaboration with , + 👏👏👏 public voting is now open. Link in bio!

Bright dahlias on a rainy day at the Union Square green market 💛

2nd years practiced doing an observational study at the market before doing the exercise for their own thesis topics.

Week 2 in Thesis Studio: sharing moodboards and up to 50 ideas for a provotype💡

Next week: make the provotype

Field trip! 2nd years attended this week’s Designing for Public Policy class at the office in Dumbo. They had a fruitful discussion of the first two chapters of “Poverty, by America” by Matthew Desmond and defined key words that will help contextualize issues they’ll be workshopping over the next few weeks.

Happy Friday!

Tonight is the night we hear from expert transition designer Cameron Tonkinwise!

Please join us on zoom at 6pm EST for an engaging lecture and Q&A.

Zoom link in bio & story.

See you soon!

THIS THURSDAY:

Join us for an engaging virtual lecture and Q&A with transition designer Cameron Tonkinwise.

Designing Support: Foreseeing Interdependencies

REGISTER for the event & zoom access via link in bio.

Very demure very mindful in the woodshop

Big congrats to rising second-year students Tao Tao Holmes and Zai Thakoor, who recently launched their own creative studio, Lunch Special.

Combining the co-founders’ respective superpowers, the studio specializes in brand and visual design, creative direction, and strategy, with a focus on small businesses and early-stage start-ups.

If you know someone who might need their services, drop them a line!

✏️🗒️lunchspecial.co

Jin ‘25 has been enjoying her time working this summer, including exhibiting at a trade show and designing lighting systems for a furniture buyer. Her passion for lighting design shone in her work this past year, from prototypes in the 3D Product Design course to challenging herself to design one lamp a day for 30 days💡

A few more snapshots of the friends, family, students, alumni, and faculty who gathered for our program’s 11th Thesis Show.

Head to the “Projects” page on our website to read about each thesis. We guarantee you’ll be inspired!



Photographed by

Our newly minted MFA graduates delivered 15 phenomenal thesis presentations in May at the SVA Theater. On top of a year of research, interviews, writing, and prototyping, students worked with a speech coach to perfect their presentation skills and polish their scripts—and the results spoke for themselves.

Head to the “Projects” page on our website to read highlighted products from each thesis and view full presentation videos.

productsofdesign.sva.edu/projects

Erika Choe’s sculptural series on display at Uncool Gallery.

Erika Choe ‘23’s latest work, "leaky bodies," will be on view at Uncool Gallery in Brooklyn, New York from June 27 through July 27 as part of the group show, At Different Speeds.

Choe’s sculptural vessels feature folds, crevices, and curves that allude to the soft way our human bodies exist and relate. Their embodied expressions grew from Erika’s background as a movement artist and how her body now relates to earth and clay.

Choe hand-crafted “leaky bodies” during her NYCxDESIGN Residency this past May.

Snaps from the opening of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich's current exhibition, Design for All? Diversity as the Norm, featuring 2023 alum Margarita Zulueta’s thesis project "Flex," a speculative air fleet with fat-friendly airplane structures.
design

Margarita’s products are derived from her thorough research on fat activism and topics related to anti-fat bias, which is sourced from inclusive secondary readings of academic studies, memoirs, and subject matter expert interviews across the United States and Canada. The products range from a speculative design that opens up air-travel access; to a dating platform that acknowledges fat dating challenges; to a fat-femme supporting microloan platform; to a celebration of the fat form through physical products; to a fat-positive dining experience for fat-femmes and allies.

Read more about Margarita’s thesis on our website.

Class of 2025 students Yuancong Jing, Emma Brigaud, and Yinning Gao represented PoD in the annual Schools Workshop led by Advanced Design Studio and featuring students from (Mexico), (France), (France), as well as , , , and .

After four days exploring the future of mobility through Al tools and design frameworks teams presented their projects on the ICFF main stage in front of an international audience and jury, including PoD Chair and Editor of , Allan Chochinov.

While the workshop was intense in nature, there were plenty of opportunities to check out exhibits , play some competitive ping pong, network and make new friends.

Congratulations to Souvik Paul ‘16 and his team at Aurie for joining the MedTech Innovator program (5% acceptance rate!). We wish you the best as you progress towards FDA Submission.

View of “Products of Design, Live!” at at for week where we’ve “recreated” parts of the department studio in our booth. More pictures soon!

students presenting at Student Showcase night! Congrats .r and for representing Products of Design with your inspiring work!

Unravel offers a gamified approach to raise awareness within the South Asian Community about the extent of Domestic Violence in the US. This immersive experience took the form of a simulation where participants received prompts. They were tasked with either concealing provided objects or utilizing clues to locate four objects within a tight two-minute timeframe. The aim was to shed light on the daily struggles of individuals living in hazardous environments, emphasizing the need for constant vigilance.

Designed by 

Resources & Acknowledgements: 
Mehrotra, G. R. (2016). South Asian Women and Marriage: Experiences of a Cultural Script. Gender Issues, 33(4), 350–371. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-016-9172-7

Kurien, P. A. (2001). Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence among South Asian Immigrants in the United States [Review of Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence among South Asian Immigrants in the United States]. Social Forces, 79(4), 1542–1543. University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2001.0045

Raj, A., Liu, R., McCleary-Sills, J., & Silverman, J. G. (2005). South Asian Victims of Intimate Partner Violence More Likely than Non-Victims to Report Sexual Health Concerns. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 7(2), 85–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-005-2641-9

Nagaraj, N. C., Vyas, A. N., McDonnell, K. A., & DiPietro, L. (2018). Understanding Health, Violence, and Acculturation Among South Asian Women in the US. Journal of Community Health, 43(3), 543–551. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-017-0450-4

Bhandari, S., & Millner, U. C. (2022). Prevalence of Domestic Violence and Mental Health Symptoms among South Asian women in the United States. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 24(5), 1–13.



Ria is a designer, strategist and creative with a passion for producing work that highlight often unnoticed moments in life and celebrating them. She has come to value the presence of design in everyday experiences. She is curious about how human behavior shapes both culture and design. Her experiences during her undergrad sparked her interest in working at the crossroads of psychology, design, and culture.

During her time at POD, she realized that there is a huge need in research as well as upliftment for women’s problems. She recently co-hosted a visionboarding workshop in collaboration with Women in Design. She hopes to continue to empower and push
underrepresented communities and genders.

Outside her professional interests, she loves to dance to afrobeats or try a new cuisine with her friends from POD. She is currently on a quest to find the best biryani place in New York.

“My favorite memory with POD was our trip to Dia Beacon. The journey getting there was exhausting but it fel easier and more fun because of my POD gang!”





Unravel offers a gamified approach to raise awareness within the South Asian Community about the extent of Domestic Violence in the US. This immersive experience took the form of a simulation where participants received prompts. They were tasked with either concealing provided objects or utilizing clues to locate four objects within a tight two-minute timeframe. The aim was to shed light on the daily struggles of individuals living in hazardous environments, emphasizing the need for constant vigilance.

Designed by 

Resources & Acknowledgements: 
Mehrotra, G. R. (2016). South Asian Women and Marriage: Experiences of a Cultural Script. Gender Issues, 33(4), 350–371. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-016-9172-7

Kurien, P. A. (2001). Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence among South Asian Immigrants in the United States [Review of Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence among South Asian Immigrants in the United States]. Social Forces, 79(4), 1542–1543. University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2001.0045

Raj, A., Liu, R., McCleary-Sills, J., & Silverman, J. G. (2005). South Asian Victims of Intimate Partner Violence More Likely than Non-Victims to Report Sexual Health Concerns. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 7(2), 85–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-005-2641-9

Nagaraj, N. C., Vyas, A. N., McDonnell, K. A., & DiPietro, L. (2018). Understanding Health, Violence, and Acculturation Among South Asian Women in the US. Journal of Community Health, 43(3), 543–551. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-017-0450-4

Bhandari, S., & Millner, U. C. (2022). Prevalence of Domestic Violence and Mental Health Symptoms among South Asian women in the United States. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 24(5), 1–13.