Dr Noel Waite

Senior Lecturer, Design History, Exhibition Design and Print Culture

Curriculum vitae

Noel Waite’s design research is primarily focussed around design history (particularly Communication Design and New Zealand) and its communication through exhibition design. His most recent exhibition was ‘Dunedin Design Art & Industry‘ at the Hocken Gallery (31 January–28 March 2009), and he is currently co-curating an exhibition on designer and artist Leo Bensemann.

He received his PhD from the University of Canterbury in 1997. He taught for 2 years in the General Studies/Professional Development programme in the School of Engineering at Auckland University before taking up the Marsden Postdoctoral Fellowship in New Zealand Print Culture at Otago University in 1999. In 2000–01, he was Curator of Social History at Te Manawa, Museum, Gallery, Science Centre in Palmerston North.

He has been involved with the History of Print Culture in New Zealand project since its inception in 1995, and is author of Books for a Nation: The Whitcoulls Story (2008) and co-editor of a forthcoming History of the Book in New Zealand and contributed to Book & Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa Eds Penny Griffith, Ross Harvey & Keith Maslen (Wellington: Victoria UP, 1997) and A Book in the Hand: Essays on the History of the Book in New Zealand Eds Penny Griffith, Peter Hughes & Alan Loney (Auckland: Auckland UP, 2000).

Current teaching

• Coordinator: DESN 101 – Design Inquiry
• Coordinator: DESN 204 – Design Futures
• Coordinator: DESI 315 – Design Project I (2012)
• Coordinator: DESI 433 – Interdisciplinary Design Studio

Current postgraduate supervision

• D Wood: ‘Studio Furniture Down-Under: Down and Almost Out’. PhD, supervisor
• Polly Cantlon: ‘A History of Graphic Design in New Zealand’. PhD, co-supervisor.
• Tobias Danielmeier: ‘Creation of identity through construction of space’. PhD, supervisor.
• Michael Findlay: ‘Amyas Connell, 'High and Over' and the role of New Zealand architects in the British Modern Movement’. MCApSc, supervisor.
• Gavin O’Brien: ‘Straining History: Rural Innovation’. MCApSc, supervisor.
• Kate Stevens: ‘Design in Conversation with Community’. MCApSc, co-supervisor.

Past postgraduate supervision

• Cathy Tuato’o Ross: ‘The Constructed Photograph’. PhD (2010), supervisor.
• Alice Lake Hammond: ‘Interpretive Design: An Exploration of Exhibition Design through Theory and Reflective Practice’. MCApSc (2007), supervisor.
• John Weare III: ‘The Augmented Voice: Exploring Internet-based Narrative Design Paradigms’. MCApSc (2004), supervisor.

Research areas

• Design history
• Exhibition design
• Print culture

Recent publications

• 42 below: Book culture and its business in New Zealand. Conference paper presentation at SHARP conference, University of Helsinki, 18 August 2010. Abstract peer reviewed. Abstract available at: http://www.helsinki.fi/sharp2010/program.htm
• Design History Exhibitions: The critical interaction of practice and people. Poster presentation at Create10 Interaction Design conference, University of Edinburgh Napier, 18 August 2010. Abstract peer reviewed. Details available at: http://www.create-conference.org/programme/
• Reasonable Precedents. Waite, Noel & Wood, Luke. 'Reasonable Precedents' The National Grid 6 (2010): 25-42. Details available at: http://www.thenationalgrid.co.nz/issue6.html
• Books for a Nation: The Whitcoulls Story, Auckland, NZ: Whitcoulls, 2008.
• Waite, N. and Rasmussen, T. ‘Houses outside the Museum: “Savage Crescent: Designing the future of State Housing”’. Te Ara (Museums Aotearoa) (2006) 15-20.
• ‘The Octopus and its Silent Teachers: A New Zealand Response to the British Book Trade;‘ Worlds of Print: Diversity in the Book Trade’. Eds John Hinks & Catherine Armstrong Trade. New Castle, DEL: Oak Knoll & British Library, 2006. 13-30.
• ‘The Lay of the Case: Putting New Zealand Communication Design on the Map’. The National Grid 1 (2006) 40-47, 65.
• ‘The Convivial Culture of Design Research‘. IADE da Imagem 3.2 (2005) 90-96.
• Waite, N. ‘Precedent: Connecting the past and present to create plausible design futures’ in Another Name for Design: Words for Creation. Proceedings of the 6th International Design History and Design Studies Conference Ed. Haruhiko Fujita. Osaka: Osaka University Communication-Design Center, 2008: 180-3.
• Waite, N. ‘“The Best Holidays on the Globe”: Charles Francis, American Typothetae, and the federation of New Zealand Master Printers’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 102:2 (2008): 175-95.
• Waite, N. ‘Perverting the Press: Alan Loney’s Paradoxical Postmodern Private Press’ The National Grid 4 (2007) 83-95.
• Waite, N. ‘Back to the Future: Typographic mutagenesis in New Zealand’ in Design and Evolution: Design History Society Conference Eds. Timo de Rijk and J.W. Drukker, Delft 2006. CD. ISBN 978-90-5155-032-0
• Waite, N. ‘Denis Glover: Printer’s Devil or an Affair with Angels?’ Script & Print: Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin (2005) 341-55, 367-8.
• Waite, N. ‘The Byron of Burnside: Bob Gormack's Nag's Head Press’ A Book in the Hand: Essays on the History of the Book in New Zealand. Auckland University Press, 2000. 188-201. View at New Zealand Electronic Text Centre

Membership

• Designers Institute of New Zealand (DINZ), associate member