Steven Holt

1957 - 2015

Steven Skov Holt 1957-2015: Design Educator, Author, Curator Steven Skov Holt died in San Francisco on Thursday, August 13, 2015. He was born in Hartford on September 24, 1957 and graduated from Canton High School in 1975. In 1979 after a long illness he received a kidney transplant from Hartford Hospital that enabled him to continue his education and live in good health for over 20 years. He had been on kidney dialysis for the past 15 years but was able to keep teaching and writing until the end. Steven received his B.A. in Cognitive Science from Brown University (magna cum laude) in 1982. After graduation, he moved to New York City where he was a fellow at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, editor of ID Magazine and co-founder of the Industrial Design program at Parsons School of Design. Steven moved to the west coast in 1990 to pursue an M.F.A. in Product Design at Stanford University. Upon graduation he joined the global consultancy frogdesign as Visionary and later Vice President. In 1995 he began teaching at California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco (now California College of the Arts) as Chair of the Product Design program; he was named Distinguished Professor of Design in 2003. Steven's life was full of passion for design and design education. "What really interests me is curiosity ... finding that spark and seeing it in young people and developing it so that the spark becomes an idea." Author of numerous books and articles on design and creativity, Steven is perhaps most well known for coining the term "blobjects" in the early 90s to describe the fluid form language that computer software was making possible in design at the time. Despite his health challenges he believed that design has the power to make positive change in the world and he worked tirelessly to instill that in his students and colleagues. Steven is survived by his wife Mara and son Larson both of San Francisco, his mother Alice Lund of Avon and his father John Holt of Granby, sister Catherine Curtin (Holt) of Germantown, MD, and brothers Stewart Holt of Newport, RI, and Sterling Holt of Burlington, CT. Every Moment Matters