Design Education Talks Ep. 69 – Shalini Prasad

Dan Vlahos – Dynamic Media, Critical Thinking, and Design Pedagogy Design Education Talks

Dan Vlahos is a Boston-based design leader, educator, and researcher. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Bentley University and is serving on the AIGA Boston Board. Vlahos is also a member of the Boston Society of Printers, the Design Management Institute, and was a founding member of Design Museum Boston (now CoDesign Collaborative). His interdisciplinary design work has been recognized by the AIGA, the One Club, Print, How, and the Interactive Media Council. Vlahos began his career in Arnold Worldwide’s Volkswagen Design Group and later served as Creative Director for Shepley Bulfinch architects. His past clients include Harvard University, Duke University, Educators for Social Responsibility, and the Industrial History Center. Vlahos received a BFA in Graphic Design from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and returned to MassArt’s Dynamic Media Institute to complete his MFA in Design in 2017. Vlahos’ research explores empowerment, complexity, dynamic media, sustainability, and creative learning. In 2020, Merrimack College’s Interdisciplinary Institute named Vlahos a Presidential Fellow, and in 2021, Vlahos entered into the Design Incubation program as a Writing Fellow. In 2023, he became a USGBC LEED Green Associate and an AIGA Design Leader (DL). In 2024, Vlahos was named an AACSRE Emerging Fellow, and in June 2025, his short motion-graphics-based film Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design premiered at the MODE Summit in Prague.Link to website: https://danvlahos.comLink to Towards a Dynamic Discipline of Design motion graphics film: http://dynamicdesign.filmSince its inception in 2019, Design Education Talks podcast has served as a dynamic platform for the exchange of insights and ideas within the realm of art and design education. This initiative sprang from a culmination of nearly a decade of extensive research conducted by Lefteris Heretakis. His rich background, intertwining academia, industry, and student engagement, laid the foundation for a podcast that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of educational discourse.See all of our work on on https://linktr.ee/thenewartschoolFollow us on twitter at @newartschoolRead our latest articles at https://newartschool.education/and https://heretakis.medium.com/Equipment used to produce the podcast:Rodcaster pro IIRode NT1 5th generationElgato Low profile Microphone ArmMonster Prolink Studio Pro microphone cableThe rest of the equipment is here 👉https://kit.co/heretakis/podcasting
  1. Dan Vlahos – Dynamic Media, Critical Thinking, and Design Pedagogy
  2. Jan Kubasiewicz on Teaching Design as a System of Meaning
  3. Nikolaus Hafermaas – Berlin Unplugged: Design, Education, and the Courage to Disrupt
  4. The Future of Learning with Christian Dominique: AI, Neuroscience and the Art of Wellness in Education
  5. Design in Motion: James Grady on Creative Process and Emerging Technologies

Shalini Prasad is an educator, integrative designer, brand consultant, and graphic artist. She runs her own design practice under DeSha Consulting and teaches visual communication and typography at the College of Art and Design at Lesley University. In addition to her professional and academic roles, she is a classical trained dancer, and actor. She loves traversing the many modalities of the creative arts along with the performing arts and believes that each informs the other, fuelling her overall nebulous, no man’s lands, trans-disciplinary artistic ideology (that she has finally made peace with! 🙂

Shalini’s collaborative and inclusive methodology enable her to seamlessly grasp, traverse, and interpret various modalities of design in both two and three dimensions, while fearlessly dismissing conventional boundaries, whether she is designing a brand,  a space, or a curriculum. With over twenty years of diverse experience, an interdisciplinary education in architecture, graphic design and art, she demonstrates a deep passion for storytelling and an innate artistic and analytical sensibility, whether she is studying the minutiae of typography with her students or designing larger movements of design in space for her clients.

Shalini moved to the US twenty years ago from India, having lived in 15 cities including England, the Middle East, and the US, with Boston as her home for the past three. You can find her in a happy trance doing the following: improv cooking, singing, home decorating, doing word games, running, playing the guitar, solving math riddles and reading memoirs.

https://www.de.shacreative.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaliniprasadatdesha/Support the show

Follow us on twitter at @newartschool
Visits us on https://linktr.ee/thenewartschool
Read our latest articles at https://heretakis.wordpress.com/
and https://heretakis.medium.com/

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