Nikolai Cornell is an award-winning media designer and technologist whose work focuses on the intersection of architecture and immersive interactive content. With experience in exhibit design, interface development, web, print, branding, and photography he is well positioned to utilize his broad range of talents to create truly unique interactive experiences.
He received his bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Virginia Tech in 1997 and spent two years working for FACE Architecture in San Francisco designing interior commercial and residential projects before turning his attention to the field of web design in 1999. He worked for several years as a web designer at Razorfish, helping to design and implement highly innovative websites in both HTML and Flash for a large variety of clients before leaving at the end of 2001 to pursue his own projects and later attend graduate school at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.
In 2004 he completed his MFA in Media Design with a thesis entitled: “Life-Size - A series of interactive installations that explore human-scale interaction, environmental interface and display systems.”
His MFA thesis has won a gold at the Art Directors Club (ADC) 84th Awards, a merit award at the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) 2005 design awards, an iF communication design award, a silver IDEA award from the IDSA, an honorable mention in the I.D. Student Design Review 2005, and is featured in the Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual 11.
Earlier this year he completed several interactive installations for The George P. Johnson Company. All of which debuted at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show.
Cornell is teaching a an Anderson Ranch workshop intensive this September on designing interactive installations using sensors and microcontrollers. The workshop will run from Sept 10-14th.
