Director of Design, Knoll, Inc.
Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute
Karen Stone is director of design for Knoll and is responsible for the design of Knoll Showrooms, Knoll Retail Shops, exhibits and trade shows worldwide; for bringing sustainable design, new materials and technologies to Knoll product design; and for establishing direction for new finishes for Knoll products. Since joining Knoll in 1991, her award-winning work with the company has been cited in publications including ID, Domus, Interiors, and Inside Design Now. She has created a new line of products for Knoll Shop retail store and established the Knoll Design Student Internship program.
An adjunct professor of industrial design at Pratt Institute, Stone has been guest teacher at Bauhaus Universitat-Weimar and Tsinghua University, Beijing; visiting professor at Samsung Art and Design Institute; and has led projects with Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and Keio University. She serves as Pratt faculty advisor to the IDSA Student Chapter, leads design workshops at New York City High Schools and was a panelist for Design for Social Impact May 2016, Women x Design May 2017, and Design50 October 2018. She holds a BS in industrial design from Ohio State University, an MID from Pratt Institute, and has studied at Oxford University. In 2018, she received a Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement from OSU and currently serves on the Board of the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Karen Stone, IDSA is Design Director at Knoll and an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute, where she also is the faculty advisor for the Pratt IDSA Student Chapter. Karen is not only a passionate design educator but also someone who makes time for her students outside of the classroom, holding regular meetings and making direct introductions between students and IDSA staff, Pratt alumni, and other ID professionals. This year she has been working with IDSA Staff on a possible blueprint that could be replicated to make student chapters across the country more connected to IDSA National.
Moreover, she has successfully engaged and led her students through a switch to a completely remote learning environment earlier this year, with all of the difficulties that entailed. “As a design professor, I find that my students provide inspiration on a regular basis,” Karen says. “However, 2020 has been an experience beyond anything any of us could have expected.” She remembers very clearly the first time she held class via Zoom, after the return to the Spring 2020 semester was delayed due to the onset of COVID-19. “Students were scattered in different cities, and when they saw each other (some of them on their small screen on their phone) for the first time after all those weeks, they were so happy. We all laughed a lot. None of them had ever Zoom’d before and I think they were surprised that I got it to work.”
Stone teaches courses in Pratt’s Industrial Design department with the curriculum of Rowena Reed Kostellow, FIDSA: Three-Dimensional Design methodology. “The transition of the lessons, from the traditional practice of hands-on, abstract, and playful 3D design sketching to virtual teaching, has been really rough,” she says. At the same time, “students have said, and I absolutely agree, 2020 has forced all of us to learn new technologies and new ways of doing everything, more than we could ever have imagined…It has has been quite inspiring for me to watch how students have jumped in, experimenting with new platforms, apps, software, etc., in addition to seeing them use their imagination to learn all they can.”
Her Zoom classes now include students spread over a 15-hour time difference. “We have celebrated holidays and customs of their different cultures,” she says. “The world is smaller; we feel closer as a community.”
Simultaneously, “the Pratt Student Chapter of IDSA is working hard on their initiatives, especially those that help them to connect,” Karen continues. “As Faculty Advisor, I am seeing that they are keen on taking advantage of various platforms and virtual sessions to organize student meetings, and more students are attending.”
She acknowledges that students are also feeling the pressure of what’s next, and are well aware that the job scene will be competitive coming out of school. A virtual session scheduled for the 2020 winter break will focus on portfolio building, conducted by Pratt faculty. Following this workshop, a Spring 2021 session planned and organized with support from the IDSA-NYC professional chapter will involve New York City-area professional designers giving students direct input related to portfolios. Another ongoing project for the Pratt Student Chapter is building open studios via social media.
Also next semester, “we plan to launch a mentorship program for ID students, matching more experienced students with those just starting out in their design studies,” Karen says. “Sharing lessons learned, whether it be in new discoveries in technology or just simply in how to manage day-to-day life these days, has been students’ focus. I remind students to engage, participate, reinvent themselves, and contribute to being good citizens of the world, to work hard and dream with ambition. What’s next is in their hands.”
