Designer to chair jury for professional competition

ANN ARBOR—Shaun Jackson, designer, inventor, entrepreneur and associate professor of art at the University of Michigan’s School of Art and Design, will chair the jury for the prestigious 2001 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

Jackson’s work at U-M has included a collaboration with Herman Miller for the Home in which his U-M students were challenged to design and build a Museum of Modern Art Store in New York City. The designer founded his first design company in the early ’70s and took it to international recognition as a leader in the design and manufacture of high quality recreational products for which the firm was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts.

An award winner in the 1998 IDEA competition, Jackson’s “Lapdog” solved a problem basic to laptop computers—they slide off your lap. The business accessories stored in the Lapdog’s side pockets (similar to saddlebags) produce enough resistance to keep the computer where it belongs—on the lap.

IDEA is considered the world’s most prestigious recognition of excellence in the profession that is responsible for the form, use features and interactive qualities of products, exhibits and software.