Surface Imaging Symposium: What is Surface Imaging?

Just what is Surface Imaging, anyway?

As part of a long-standing partnership with DesignPhiladelphia, and The Center for Architecture & Design, the faculty of Jefferson’s Surface Imaging Center, and Surface Imaging Research academic program, answered just that question.

To expand public and academic outreach this past semester, the S.I. Program hosted its first official public symposium since 2015, and the first one held outside of Jefferson’s East Falls campus, this time at the beautiful Center City headquarters of CFAD.

Aiding in the question of all things S.I. were program partners Clive Roux, CEO, from the Society of Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), David Siegel, Director of Surface Imaging, at Designtex, Johnny Shell, VP of Print Technology and Training at the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA), and Kaijie Chen, S.I. Graduate, and Surface Imaging design professional, among other industry, design, and education luminaries. The reception during the event was generously sponsored by FUJIFILM, Inc., another long-time program partner.

Presenters from Jefferson Surface Imaging included Hitoshi Ujiie, Director, Surface Imaging Program, E.J. Herczyk, Associate Professor, and Mark Mattson, Faculty and Manager for the Center for Excellence in Surface Imaging; the only educational large-format print and technology center and program of its kind in the world.

The event also coincided with the 2019 MSSI Alumni Exhibition, a specially-selected collection of recent innovative design work printed and fabricated at the S.I. Center, also on view at the Center’s galleries during the event and beyond. Exhibitors included S.I. Program Alumni Myrna Gutierrez, Allison Ardire, Kaijie Chen, and Jessica Erin Cary.

Through the presenters’ speeches, roundtable, and exhibition on display, the answers emerged: Surface Imaging utilizes new digital imaging technologies to print on most any surface imaginable. This is an emerging discipline that exists at the intersection of art, design, engineering, and commerce, to create scalable, customized physical forms from the most miniature, high-res product prototypes, to the most massive architectural installations, and everything in-between.

The only question now is: What will be made next?

– Mark Mattson
The Center for Excellence In Surface Imaging
2020