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Dave Towey

Creative Technology / Design / Development
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David John Towey

Email: davetowey@gmail.com

Mobile: +61 414 466 420

Personal Profile

I am a versatile designer and programmer with skills in the areas of interaction design, creative technology and software development.

After originally studying Design at the University of New South Wales, I spent a year at Fabrica - Benetton’s Communication Research Centre in Northern Italy where I worked as a member of the interactive department.

With over 15 years experience working in Australia and overseas, I have gained a strong mix of creative and technical skills across a range of design areas and development technologies. My creative interactive media work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across Australia and around the world including group installations and performances in Istanbul, Venice, Seoul and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

I am currently working for global architecture studio Woods Bagot as part of their design research and development enterprise SUPERSPACE.

Employment History

SUPERSPACE - Woods Bagot

Senior Associate | Manager, Digital Environments - SUPERSPACE

2016 - Present

Since mid-2016 I have been working at the global architecture studio Woods Bagot as a member of their design research and development enterprise, SUPERSPACE.

As part of an international team my time as been split across team strategy, conducting design related projects in collaboration with project teams and research into emerging technology related to the architecture studio. I have also recently taken a lead role in the creative and technical development of various visualisation, analysis and design tools for internal use using latest web-based technologies.

Freelance

Designer/Developer

2011 - 2016

Working on a freelance basis across a wide range of disciplines related to design, software development and creative uses of technology.

Commercial work to date has varied greatly and includes the customisation of business management software through to the development of mobile applications and large-scale, site-specific interactive projects for clients including BCG, Nissan, Singtel, Visa and Telstra.

Personal work has focussed more specifically on interaction design and the development of interactive installations that have been exhibited both in Australia and internationally. Recent collaborations include artworks exhibited as part of ISEA 2014 in Dubai and the VIVID festival in Sydney.

UNSW Art & Design

Lecturer (Casual Academic)

2015

Lecturer for the elective unit 'Digital Design: Introduction to Interactive Design' at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Art & Design.

The course is an elective that introduces the key concepts, skills, technologies and ways of thinking involved in innovative interactive design practices. Students are guided through the analysis, design and development of interactive data visualisation projects using newly emerging open-source standards.

Design Lab - University of Sydney

Lecturer/Unit Coordinator (Casual Academic)

2015 - 2016

Lecturer and unit coordinator for the course unit 'Information Visualisation Design' as part of the Bachelor of Design Computing programme at the University of Sydney.

The course is a core studio for third-year students and focuses on how non-physical data can be effectively represented to users in an interactive or generative way. Part of the course explored the possibilities of generative design techniques in visualising complex data. 

Lightwell

Technical Director

2006 - 2011

Worked as Lead Designer and Developer and then Technical Director at Sydney-based creative technology studio Lightwell.

Responsible for the user-experience design, interaction design, technical direction and development of a range of interactive installations for galleries and museums around Australia including touch-screens, large-scale multi-user experiences, mobile applications and interactive projections and environments. 

Works developed include the Dangerous Australians interactive table at the Australian Museum and the award-wining One Road | Yiwarra Kuju Multi-touch interactive as part of the Canning Stock Route exhibition at the National Museum of Australia. 

Fabrica

Designer/Developer (Interactive Department)

2004 - 2005

Granted a year-long residency at Fabrica - Benetton’s Communication Research Centre in Northern Italy. Grant holders at Fabrica are selected from creative applicants under the age of 25 from around the world to engage in creative research into communication in a variety of art and design related fields.

Worked as a designer and developer in the interactive department on various projects including websites, interactive installations and performance based pieces.

Major projects included the interaction design for the online component of a successful bid to develop the tourism campaign for the Veneto region of Northern Italy, A screen-based interactive for a major exhibition of 15th-Century Art and numerous interactive installations exhibited in group shows throughout Europe and Asia.

Capisco (C4 Communication)

2002

Designer

Worked as designer for Capisco, a communications software company in Sydney that eventually became C4 Communication. Working with the development and marketing teams - responsible for the graphic design and user experience design for a range of award-winning communications software solutions. The Capisco Vision software was awarded a Consensus Software Award in 2003.

 

Education

Fabrica

2004 - 2005 

Participated in a number of week-long creative workshops with internationally recognised artists and designers including Antenna Design (USA), Casey Reas (USA), Golan Levin (USA), Abake (UK) and Future Farmers (USA).

The University of New South Wales - College of Fine Arts

1999 - 2001 

Bachelor of Design (First Class Honours) 

Awarded The Richard Dovey Medal for Design 2001

Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview

1997 Higher School Certificate

Technical Skills

Design

Experience with a wide range of digital design tools including common wireframing and rapid prototyping applications as well as the Adobe Creative Suite applications including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and basic After Effects.

Development

15 years software development experience for a range of devices and delivery contexts including custom application development using the following technologies:

  • OpenFrameworks (C++ / OpenGL)
  • Cinder (C++ / OpenGL)
  • iOS/Cocoa Touch (Objective-C)
  • Front-end web development (HTML5/JavaScript/CSS)
  • Various Javascript tools and frameworks (React, AngularJS, JQuery)
  • Data visualisation (D3, Three.js)
  • Back-end web development (PHP/MySQL, Zend, Node.js)
  • Processing (Java)
  • Android development (Java)
  • Basic server administration (AWS, Apache, cPanel, WHM)
  • DevOps using Docker and Kubernetes
  • IoT prototyping via Arduino/Wiring and basic electronics knowledge
  • Camera vision (OpenCV)
  • Bluetooth LE/iBeacon and Location services
  • Cross platform development (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux)
  • Git and other version control systems
  • Netsuite development (SuiteScript)

References

Available on request

davetowey@gmail.com | +61 414 466 420