educational institution in Austin, Texas,
teaching Interaction Design and Social Entrepreneurship.
Austin Center for Design
Austin Center for Design exists to transform society through design and design education. This transformation occurs through the development of design knowledge directed towards all forms of social and humanitarian problems.
1 Year Course in Interaction Design & Social Entrepreneurship
We offer a one year course—held at nights and on weekends in Austin, Texas—that emphasizes creative problem solving in the context of social issues, like poverty and nutrition. Students learn about human behavior, humanizing technology, and business strategy. The program is ideal for designers, business/marketing professionals, artists, and technologists with several years of experience. We also encourage more established professionals who are looking to change the trajectory of their careers to apply.
Explore our Resource Library
We've made available dozens of lectures, readings, and worksheets from our curriculum - for free!
AC4D's 2014-2015 Speaker Series
Join leaders in design, business and technology as they host talks and workshops focused on leveraging design in a strategic, thoughtful manner.
AC4D published a book called Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving. It's a handbook for becoming a social entrepreneur.
Meet Our Students
Cheyenne Weaver is an artist, designer, and naturalist who is inspired by the challenges of living sustainably. When she's not chasing beetles Cheyenne does front-end web development for Red Hat, makes sculpture, and freelances occasionally. Recent freelance work includes t-shirt designs for the band Arcade Fire and identity/web design for SoftwareMill. Recent exhibitions include participating in the East Austin Studio Tour, and Damaged Romantics, held at the Grey Gallery in New York and the ... Keep Reading »
From Our Blog
Six thinkers on design thinking
The current topic in our theory class is ‘design thinking’ which we’re exploring via the following essays, listed here in chronological order: Horst Rittel, Melvin Webber – Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning (1973) This is a foundational text where the authors, who were both professors at UC Berkeley, coin the term ‘wicked problem’, in the context of social policy planning. They define 10 characteristics that distinguish such problems, and contrast them to the ‘tame’ problems dealt with in…
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© 2009-2014 Austin Center for Design.
Austin Center for Design is a not-for-profit corporation in Austin, Texas - 501(c)(3), under the status of the IRS.