David Nuff, who simply goes by Nuff, is a Toronto based designer and artist with experience in design branding, illustrations, and interactive art, among other hobbies. Though he has a Bachelor’s in Modern Languages and Fine Arts from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, he has been designing for over ten years. His clients include brands like Cisco, Nestle and Google. He was recognized as a Rising Designer in 2015, but is still working on really interesting projects.
A recent project he talked about during his lecture was a project called Biometric Bias. It looked at a facial recognition software that was supposed to determine how likely that person was to commit a crime. Nuff and his team found that it statistically correlated darker skin with crime probability. Nuff, being darker skinned, found this especially problematic and worked with a team to highlight these issues.
Another project of his I really love was Shard. It is a large icicle looking installation that is internally lit, so it appears to glow. As people moved around it, closer and further, it reacted with light and sound. This piece was a part of the 2017-18 Winter Lights Exhibition at Ontario Place in Canada. Nuff explained how it was all powered with arduino’s, not anything fancy or out of reach of whats possible for a young designer.
I think this really put into perspective how close designing for real is for students of our level. I love installation art, as well as interactive art, so hearing Nuff’s talk, and seeing his work on his website is super inspiring. It made me feel like there is a place for me between the world of design and the world of art.
I think he is lesser known because he takes a much more creative approach to design than his more “serious”, white male counterparts However, I think his approach of being more “artful”, as he puts it, in his design process is a really thoughtful approach to design. I think it helps keep the human aspect in the design by never stopping “playing”. Playing helps you keep learning and yearning to do new things, and keeps designers young.
Bibliography
“David Nuff – Designers.” Toptal, [https://www.toptal.com/designers/resume/david-nuff]. Accessed 5 November 2020.
“David Nuff RGD: The Artful Designer: Creating for Commerce and Culture.” YouTube, RGD, 19 Dec. 2019, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GNcUEE-_Cs]. Accessed 5 November 2020.
Nuff, David. “About.” Nuff, [https://temporary.designbynuff.com/about]. Accessed 5 November 2020.
Nuff, David. “Shard.” Nuff, 2017, [https://temporary.designbynuff.com/shard]. Accessed 5 November 2020.
Senior Thesis Guest Lecturer: Nuff, 10/09/2020, Private Recording. Accessed 5 November 2020.
This post is really well-written and was really fun to read. Thank you for sharing!