Robert Creighton

Rhode Island School of Design
Bachelors, Industrial Design '98

The New School
Masters, Media Studies '05

Robert Creighton has more than twenty years of experience in the conceptual development of interactive experiences and the design of educational environments for cultural institutions. His professional experience bringing varied and complex subject matter to life has led to the development and design of wide ranging and captivating visitor experiences for museums, aquariums, science centers and corporate clients. He’s worked with curators deeply exploring current cultural issues to understand the underlying causes of a community uprising and alongside scientists studying everything from ant decapitating flies to the water system in California. The designs that come from these projects engage the public and encourage them to question assumptions and explore their world from new perspectives.

He began his career with Tom Hennes at Thinc Design in New York where he worked on a range of award winning exhibits including the Aquarium and Rainforest within the California Academy of Sciences. While working in the field of experience design, Robert pursued theoretical work at The New School studying with Paul Ryan to understand his theory of threeing and the underlying concepts from Charles Pierce’s theory of Semiotics. This formed the critical framework for Robert’s thesis research into the application of Semiotics within the development of physical experiences centered around transportation and humans relationship to cars as still objects.

Semiotics and Sustainability inform Robert’s design process and provide a framework to address complex design problems and deliver thoughtful solutions. Recent projects include: “Built on Water” devoted to an examination of the history, present, and future of water conservation in Ontario and the surrounding region; “Game Changing,” which explores the connections made across cultures through the game of baseball post-WWII; and “Black California Dreamin’: Claiming Space at America’s Leisure Frontier” that illuminates Angelenos and other Californians who worked to make leisure here an open, inclusive reality in the first half of the twentieth century.  He is currently investigating exhibit ideas that allow children to explore their emotions as well as examining the possibilities of pushing the museum out of the building and onto the streets within communities.

Robert’s teaching practice is focused on introducing students to processes that allow them to systematically explore the full range of environmental impacts that their designs will have. This greater emphasis on material research and sustainability connected with human-centered and social impact design allows students to see where design fits in the world beyond the production of stuff while helping them find their unique view of the world and the role that they want to play in it.

Robert is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the product design department at Otis College of Art and Design. He holds a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Master’s Degree in Media Studies from The New School. His films have been shown internationally, and he currently resides in Los Angeles.