With over four decades of design experience in consulting, manufacturing, corporate, and not-for-profit sectors, Stephen Melamed engages with and interweaves multiple disciplines to create a culture of innovation. An apprentice to the Bauhaus designer/artist/author Werner Graeff and his architect/designer son Roberto Graeff, Stephen also studied with R. Buckminster Fuller for the World Game.
Stephen is the author of By Design: Museum Environments for All and has written numerous articles on innovation, industrial design, interdisciplinary product development, design thinking, and design research. He was a guest speaker at the first International Interdisciplinary Design Conference at the United Nations in New York City and has been a featured lecturer at universities and conferences around the world. The recipient of a Design Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, Stephen was honored as the 2011 IDSA Midwest Educator of the Year, selected for Newcity magazine’s Design 50: Who Shapes Chicago 2015. In 2016, he was named an IDSA Fellow. He’s been named as the inventor/co-inventor on 60 design and utility patents.
He is a founder and principal of the internationally-awarded industrial design consulting firm PlusD2, and was a founding member of the AIGA national design advocacy group, Design for Democracy.