Jim TerMeer

Professor, Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects


Jim TerMeer has been teaching at SAIC since 2008. He took his sabbatical during the AY2023–24.

Jim TerMeer is a product designer and educator. As a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jim’s teaching centers on the research and practice of the emerging global independent design movement, it’s connection with the new ideas of making objects, systems and experiences, and preparing young designers for these new challenges through collaborative sponsored projects and graduate thesis research. As partner in the design studio giffin’termeer, Jim has applied a decade of experience in the development of technology products, consumer goods and product brands into experimental projects that investigate the future of objects, and how culture makes, and produces them. The work of has been exhibited worldwide in events in Milan, Tokyo, NY, Seoul, Cheongju Korea, London, and St. Etienne France. Jim has a graduate degree from the Design Academy Eindhoven and lives and works in Chicago.

Education

BFA, 1990, Kansas City Art Institute
MDES, 2002, Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Notable Classes Taught:

whatnot studio (created, 15 years, 2011-16, 18, 22, 23, 25)

Make/Move: Experiments in Urban Mobility (created, 2 years, 2019-20)

CB2 studio (created, 2015)