Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Carl Garant attended the University of Illinois, Urbana, where he received his BFA (’70) and MFA (’74) in Industrial Design. Prior to attending graduate school he practiced industrial design both at corporate (Continental Can Corporation, General Motors) and consultancy (Dana Mox Assoc.) levels.
Upon leaving graduate school he directed his interest towards design education. In education for over thirty-two years, he is currently Dean of the Division of Industrial and Interior Design at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio. His duties, in addition to teaching, include managing the resources of the division and overseeing the curriculum and faculty.
He has written, traveled and lectured about design throughout his tenure as a design educator. In 1994 he was invited as a delegate to visit and lecture in the Republic of China by means of the People to People program. This was China’s first invitation to American industrial designers in support of China’s new “open door policy”. Dean Garant continued to publish, do workshops and present at National (IDSA Educator’s Conferences) and International Design Conferences (Asian International Design Conference, ICSID 2001)
Dean Garant has won design awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects and community service awards from The American Red Cross and Central Ohio Chapter of MADD. He has also authored three books; "The Tao of Design", “The Tao of the Circles”, and “The Designer’s Book of Change”, all of which bring new and unique perspectives to both design and the design process.
