Design Innovation Institute's Summer Youth Design Camp
July 2013

Join us in a scholarship fund drive at $1,000 per student to introduce campers to practical applications of math, science and literature in the design process.

Send us a donation to help get this event started!

Sponsorship Request Information

Thank you to those who have already donated to Design Camp:

The ESSential Foundation
The John C. Hench Foundation
The Thomas C. Ackerman Foundation
Sempra Energy

Gerald Brand, FF Development LP
Randal Ehm
Richard Forsyth
Ola Melhus, M.D.
Brenda Melhus
Lisa Menéndez
Susan Merritt
Bryan Min
Heidi M. Spurgin, Pure Design
J.Walcher Communications
Jean Walcher
Scott Weidman
Joseph Wong, AIA, Joseph Wong Design Associates
Calvin Woo
Eric Woo, Eric Woo Design
Misook and Arthur Woo

Design Innovation Institute’s summer youth camp is a week-long program to introduce 100 San Diego County students ages 14 to 17 to careers in design. Teens from diverse social and economic backgrounds will participate in workshops that focus on everyday activities that demonstrate how pervasive and important design is in our lives and encourage overlaps between disciplines in each workshop. Design Innovation Institute's program will be modeled after Design Camp, which is produced by the University of Minnesota’s Design Institute with support from Target, and is in its fifth year of operation.

Taking everyday actions and behaviors as themes of design, the camp workshops are led by internationally renowned designers. Throughout the week, campers embark on practical design adventures: participating in field trips, undertaking research, gathering materials, visiting community design venues, and engaging in the innovative process of design. The teens emerge from their camp experience with a clear sense of the key steps in design: investigation, problem synthesis, problem solving, iterative development, teamwork, marketing, and the presentation of ideas. After a five day immersion into design, the campers make a public presentation to a panel of invited “jurors” who include local and national representatives of cultural, educational, business, and professional design organizations as well as their family and friends.

The Dii Summer Youth Camp will use an idea journal throughout the program. The campers will be encouraged to draw, quick sketch, and write in their journals as they develop their ideas for their camp projects that will take them into the arenas of transportation, fashion, architectural, communication (graphics), leisure, community and environmental design. The idea journal integrates language into the design experience while the design disciplines introduce the campers to practical applications of math, science and literature in the design process. Dii will encourage the campers to continue to use the journal as a way of capturing and recording their ideas once leaving camp and returning to their studies and interests in innovation.

Design Innovation Institute invites international support in its Summer Youth Camp's scholarship fund drive at $1,000 per student.

Contact: Calvin Woo or Susan Merritt at 619 299-0431 for more information, or donate any amount online via Dii's PayPal "Make a Donation" button.