Nicholas (Nic) Vanderschantz is a lecturer in Computer Graphic Design in the Computer Science Department at the University of Waikato, in Hamilton, New Zealand. Previous to teaching at the university, Nic also taught at the highly regarded Wanganui School of Design.

Nic’s area of research focus has been in children’s on-screen reading. These investigations have specifically looked into how typographic spacing could best affect children’s eye movements during reading. This area of exploration saw him graduate with a Masters in Computer Graphic Design from Wanganui School of Design in 2007. Nic has begun publishing in this area with a recent paper presented at Ed-Media 2008 in Vienna, Austria.

As a central part of his teaching and research at the University of Waikato, Nic has pursued his interests in socially responsible graphic design through a collaborative project with community based arts foundation, Waikato Artmakers Trust. Director of Artmakers Trust, Sylvie Bolstad and Nic initiated this collaboration in 2006. The university’s contribution that Nic champions is a central part of an ongoing community initiative entitled ‘The Glass Hedgehog Project’, named as an ode to the first story created by Artmakers Trust.

Nic has developed the community and socially minded creative methodology known as Digital Storytelling into a workable series of learning outcomes suitable for final semester Computer Graphic Design students, while Sylvie has successfully integrated this into the Artmakers Trust, Foundation Arts Programme. This project finds a young storyteller paired with a senior tertiary graphic design student to create a collaboratively produced digital story. The outcome of the partnerships in this project continue to amaze, inspire and surprise, both Nic and Sylvie.

It is with great pleasure that Nic will share their story at Design Week Qatar.