Dr Barbara Predan is an assistant professor, theoretician, researcher, designer and author. She received a bachelor’s degree in industrial design, and then a master’s degree in the theory and development of design from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana. In 2012, she received her doctoral degree from the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts and the University of Nova Gorica.

Predan is the co-author of the books Back to Design: An Anthological Survey of the Theory of Design in Slovenia (2007) and Sustainable Alternatives in Design: It’s High Time We Start Losing Time (2009). She is the (co-)author (or editor) of the books and exhibitions Iskra: Non-Aligned Design 1946–1990 (2009), Niko Kralj: The Unknown Famous Designer (2011), Design education: what do you see? What do you think about it? What do you make of it? – 30 years of design at ALUO (2015), Design as the Capacity for Change: Slovenia Design Showroom Milano (2017), Death in Design (2017), Thinking the Conditions of Our Time (2019); Papiro-logía: circular design and the use of paper in interior design (2019), The Questions Raised by Design (2020); and is the author of the exhibitions Gorenje with Vision (2012), Wood²⁵ (2016–19); and is the co-author of the exhibitions Past Future Perfect (2014–15), Marx After Marx: Kunst-Marx (2019). Since 2010, with Petra Černe Oven, she has been co-editing Zbirka 42, a series of books on design, under the auspices of the Pekinpah Association. She has also participated as author or editor in the following seven volumes: Service and Information Design: Examples of Good Practice (2010), The Utopian Seminar (2011), Designing an Agenda, or, How to Avoid Solving Problems That Aren’t (2013), The Public Sector: Agent of Progress? (2015), R. Buckminster Fuller: The Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (2016), Death in Design (2017, 2020), and Edvard Ravnikar: Design (2017).

Predan has published professional and scholarly articles in Design Issues, Design Principles and Practices, The international journal of design in society, Filozofski vestnik, Dialogi, ČKZ, 2+3D, Oris, and Piranesi, among others. In 2014, she and Petra Černe Oven contributed the chapter “Information design as a (r)evolutionary educational tool” to the Routledge’s Information Design: Research and Practice edited by Alison Black, Paul Luna, Ole Lund, Sue Walker. She prepared the texts for the scientific monograph Information design: research and practice (Routledge, New York 2017) together with Dr. Petra Černe Oven. In 2019–2020, together with Tevfik Balcıoğlu and at the invitation of the organisers, she co-edited and co-chaired the section entitled “Politics and Design: Past, Present, Future” at the international conference International Committee for Design History and Design Studies (ICDHS 12) in Zagreb, October 2020. Received an invitation together with Dr. Petra Černe Oven to prepare a chapter on the history of Slovene design for the period 1945–2000 for Victor Margolin and Bloomsbury Press. The chapter will be prepared for the book World History of Design, Volume III (Bloomsbury Press).

As an assistant professor, she teaches Development and Theory of Design and the elective course Service Design at the Department of Industrial and Unique Design of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana.

Predan is a co-founder and leader of the department of design theory at the Pekinpah Association, and, since 2014, the director of the Institute of Design, an academic research organisation. She teaches a course in the history and theory of design and an elective subject in service design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana. Under the auspices of various institutions and events in Slovenia, Černe Oven and Predan have hosted over thirty world-renowned experts in the field of design. She regularly lectures at international academic and professional conferences, and, with Černe Oven, leads a number of Slovenian and international workshops in the field of service and information design.

 

Awards:

2020 – Design Principles & Practices International Award for Excellence: Award Winner for Volume 13

2019 – AIAP WOMEN IN DESIGN AWARD 2019, nomination in category: “PhD, Researchers and Teachers” (with Dr. Petra Černe Oven)

2018 – Recognition of the University of Ljubljana for special achievements and participation in the field of extracurricular activities

2017 – Award of the Slovenian Designers’ Association: Design excellence of the quarter in the field of “design theory and critique and professional journalism” (together with Dr. Petra Černe Oven)

2017 – Brumen Foundation Award in the category: information design, 6th Biennial of Visual Messages of Slovenia, National Gallery, Ljubljana (several co-authors)

2013 – Praise of the quarter of the Association of Designers of Slovenia – for a theoretical contribution to design (together with Dr. Petra Černe Oven)

2013 – Brumen Foundation Award in the category: web and mobile applications, 6th Biennial of Visual Messages of Slovenia, National Gallery, Ljubljana (several co-authors)

2012 – Award of the Slovenian Designers’ Association: Design excellence of the quarter in the field of “design theory and critique and professional journalism” (together with Dr. Petra Černe Oven)

Professional experience:

 

University of Ljubljana, Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme in the Arts

2019–present: President of the Program Committee

 

University of Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design

2020–2023: Head of research project “Models and Practices of Global Cultural Exchange and Non-aligned Movement. Research in the Spatio-Temporal Cultural Dynamics”

2019-2020: Head of Industrial Design and Applied Arts Department

2017–present: Employed as Assistant Professor

2009–2017: Guest/Visiting Lecturer

 

Hyphen’s Editorial Board

2019–present: Editorial Board Member

 

Brumen Foundation

2018–present: Board Member

2005-2010: Project Manager

 

CODEC: international design network

2016 – present: Co-founder and board member

 

Design for Europe

2015–2016: Slovenian Ambassador

 

Scientific journal The Design Journal, Bloomsbury Publishing, London (UK)

2015 – present: Editorial Manager

 

Institute of Design, Ljubljana (an academic research organisation)

2014–present: Co-founder and Director

 

Cankarjev dom, Culture and Congress Centre

2013-2019: Board Member

 

Zbirka 42 (Collection 42 – a series of books on design)

2010–present: Co-editor

 

Pekinpah Association (cultural, publishing and production association)

2013–present: Head of Design Theory Section

2007–2013: Head of Pekinpah Association

 

Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean

2007-2018: Expert Committee Member

 

Biennial of Industrial Design – BIO

2006-2010: Expert Committee Member

 

Freelancer

2000–2017: Theoretician, Critic, Curator, Designer, Educator