Crafting a design signature book: A student exploration grounded in design awareness

Abstract

This technical report documents the Design Signatures Book Design Research Group (DRG), a ten-week cohort that met in Spring 2026 at the University of Washington’s Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering. Facilitated by Cindy Atman and co-facilitated by René Capella, the DRG served both as a learning experience for the four-participant cohort and as a structured testing ground for ideas in a forthcoming public-facing book on design signatures, the characteristic patterns and commitments that distinguish an individual designer’s process. The DRG unfolded in three parts. In Weeks 1 through 3, participants oriented themselves to their own design processes through retrospective design postcards, models of design activity, design awareness questions, and an introduction to design process resilience. In Weeks 4 through 9, participants shifted from designers to readers and contributors, taking up a different lens each week the book might use to frame its content: reflection, social justice and equity, theories as frames, narrative psychology, the form and function of the book, and identity development. Week 10 returned the cohort to their evolving design signatures and a final synthesis. The report compiles weekly postcards and reflections, book-facing and personal writing, a three-part final synthesis, and curated book recommendations. It is organized in two registers: a week-by-week account of the DRG, and individual participant contributions presented in full. The DRG offered the book project an early read on how the design signature concept lands with a thoughtful audience, and surfaced patterns about audience, framing, and format that the book can carry forward.

Acknowledgements:

This work was supported by the Mark and Carolyn Guidry Foundation, the Mitchell T. and Lella Blanche Bowie Endowment and the Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching at the University of Washington. In an acknowledgment of the resources used by artificial intelligence, the authors have made a donation to a carbon offset and a clean water access organization.