About


This website presents independent and collaborative, commissioned and self initiated projects in Graphic design.

Shawn Petersen is a designer & design educator living in Portland, OR. Currently working as an instructor at Pacific Northwest College of Art and as a Design Director at Downstream with a focus on branded environments and human interaction.

Currently Shawn is interested in design, evaluation and implementation of large scale interactive computing systems. He's particularly interested in the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, and design in environments.

Over the past 10 years, Shawn has assembled a diverse portfolio of creative work for large companies, small groups and cultural institutions. Past clients include Rolling Stone, Pottery Barn Kids, Faith Hill, Steinlager, Madonna, Oakland Public Library and Santa Cruz Bicycles. His work has been featured/published in Shift Japan and the AIGA Design Education Conference.


Skills

Art Direction, Interactive and Rich Media Experience Design, Environmental Design, Package Design, Typography & Type Design, Book Design, CSS / HTML, Collage, Photography, Printmaking, Ideas, Conceptual Thinking and Dreaming.


Clients

Aetna / California College of the Arts / Carbon NYC / Demuth Kemos / Faith Hill / The Killers / Linkin Park / Pacific Northwest College of Art / Mills College / Nike / Oakland Public Library / Papo d'Anjo / Pottery Barn / Pottery Barn Kids / Prudential / Pyramis / Rolling Stone / Santa Cruz Bicycles / Steinlager / Souther Exposure Gallery / Wattis / Arnold J. Kemp


Agencies & Studios

Ascentium / Ashton Abeck / Downstream / Droga5 / Sparkart / Tree-Axis / ZDI / Cnet / GameSpot / gotomedia

News Wire


Golan Levin - The Interactive Image

I just finsihed taking an amazing interactive image workshop with Golan Levin in Tennessee. It was a "studio art course in computer science," in which the goals were art and design, but the medium was software done using the application Processing.

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I wrapped up a few large scale touch screen interactive installations this month.

I'm very interested in touch screen technologies and there's a great article in this month's Scientific American about multitouch, Perceptive Pixel, and how it all works.

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Teaching


Context + Meaning: creating compelling messages

Here is what you can expect in our newest course offering. In this class we are going to be exploring unexpected ways of thinking and creating visual messages.

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Visual Communication: Introduction to Graphic Design

Our current course offering introduces the principles and practice of graphic design. With a focus on a holistic approach to the design process, projects an exercises fuse foundational design techniques with critical thinking, typography fundamentals and an introduction to concept development and sustainability practices.

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