IDENTITY
WHO IS BEHIND ADT
STELLA ACHENBACH
"Education is about creating future."
When I was a kid I enjoyed reading already at a young age. Probably because my father who was a student at that time regularly took me with him to the University library. My mum used to read a lot at home. Books were always present.
Gaining knowledge on my own terms was something I appreciated deeply but within the borders of a regular German educational system not so much. I wasn't a bad student, but not a great one either.
There were two reasons for me to study design:
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I could bring order to the chaos in my brain.
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I could research and investigate to infinity and beyond cross-disciplinary as much as I liked.
The reason I started Applied Design Theories or short ADT is simple:
As a part-time teacher here in Peru I learned that free education is a luxury that as of now still belongs to the privileged on our planet. It made me sad and frustrated because education is why the world can move forward. The other part is, that even though I have studied at a great University in Vienna, I can safely say, that especially the details get lost in translation but they are the true elements of a great foundation.
ADT is a personal project, it doesn't underly any kind of specific rules or a specific school of design. It resembles my present knowledge of design and my best practice samples from my 10 years working as a freelancer.
I hope my courses, which I teach here in Peru at a University, will nurture your knowledge, will spark your imagination and offer you sustainable strength for all of your projects to come.
FREE EDUCATION IS A LUXURY
Free education is a luxury that should belong to everyone.
This is not about being a Socialist, a Democrat, or a Republican.
It is about common sense.
A world that is inhabited by smart and educated people will be a better world, and we are all responsible for building a brighter future.
If not for ourselves, then out of gratitude toward life or for our children.
APPLIED DESIGN THEORIES
"Learning means knowing and applying."
Applied Design Theories (ADT) has the ambition to educate and train design in an abstract format. Therefore the student will be provided with examples from different fields of design while our term within ADT will remain as just "Design".
These days the proper word for it might be 'Full Stack Designer', which means a designer that has to work in layers (yes similar to Photoshop). Today as a fashion designer and owner of a brand, they do not only design fashion. Furthermore, they are responsible for the setting, marketing, sales, lookbooks, and more. Just in this field of design alone, there are layers of different disciplines you need to master and be able to combine. The same counts for graphic designers, today, they need to be able to create user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX) while learning how to code via Codepen and generate beautiful typographic animation.
What all of these layers have in common are the fundamentals. In other words, the way we train our eyes. There are different ways to achieve that, like visiting museums, buying great books, reading about design history and why products became as famous as they are now. At Universities, we tend to the academics in one class and the practical section in a different workshop. ADT, on the other hand, combines and stimulates the newly gained knowledge within short exercises that will deepen the understanding of theories.
The core principle of Applied Design Theories is to merge learning and to gather knowledge from different sources following immediate practical application. Every course includes instructions for at least one full-fledged project-based work to deepen the learning and make it more like muscle memory.
As I design the courses for a full semester, take it easy, please. No need to hurry or rush. Every time you feel frustrated just try to do something different and distract your view to get back fresh to your project.
As these are free classes I am not observing them but please feel free:
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to send me your finished works for publication as student examples (I will not be able to publish everything, just a heads up)
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to send me an email in case you have technical errors on the pages
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to send me an email in order for me to give you personal feedback (I might not be able to get back to you immediately, just another heads up)
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to send me an email just because you want to say hi :-)
