Peter Dunn
Assistant Professor & 3D Design Shop Manager
BFA Wayne State University
MFA University of Michigan
Communication through design. Main focus in the idea of behavioral design including system image usability, comfort noise, and designed interactions.
Professional Experience
Peter Dunn is an artist, designer, and sculptor whose work explores the translation of three-dimensional concepts into graphite drawings and paintings. Over the past 27 years, he has taught at the College for Creative Studies, where his teaching practice emphasizes design as a form of communication and object-making as a way of engaging with lived experience. Trained in both fine art and design, his professional background spans furniture design, design fabrication, and architectural fabrication, disciplines that continue to inform his approach to drawing and sculpture. His teaching is also shaped by his study of user-centered design, drawing from the writings of Donald Norman and other design theorists to help students think critically about how objects communicate meaning and function.
Significant Publications, Presentations and Exhibitions
Dunn’s work has been exhibited regionally and nationally, most recently in The Industrialist and the Seer at KickstART Gallery, Farmington, a two-person exhibition with Marat Paransky that explored the idea of the “found object” through distinct approaches to form and materiality. His contributions to exhibitions have been featured in the Curator’s Corner series with Ted Hadfield at KickstART Gallery, where his drawings were described as “pale organic apparitions with touches of color waiting to be massaged into the third dimension.” Dunn has also shared his perspectives through artist talks, publications, and interviews that highlight his influences—from Brutalist architecture to the visionary world-building of film—and how these inform his ongoing exploration of the intersection between design, sculpture, and drawing.