MIAD Labs
At more than 25,000 square feet, MIAD offers one of the most expansive maker facilities in the nation. This creative hive will offer you limitless opportunities to bring your ideas to life. Here, you’ll find space and resources to define your creative path.
In MIAD’s labs, you will have access to cutting-edge technology, equipment and machinery. Expert lab technicians are available to help you use all equipment.
Check out MIAD’s 3D & Sculpture Lab, Lubar Emerging Technology Center, Lubar Innovation Center, Printmaking Lab and Textiles Lab.
3D & Sculpture Lab
MIAD’s 3-D and Sculpture lab space boasts approximately 20,000 square feet of workable space for students in all disciplines to work and create. Accommodating needs for students of varying backgrounds, the lab supplies the needed machinery and technology for working in wood, metal, plastics, vacuum forming, model building, bronze casting, ceramics, clay and much more. Found among the open, general space are separate rooms allowing for individual spray booths, tool rooms of shared usage, classroom space, in addition to many individual workstations for needed projects and ideas. True to the nature of the rest of MIAD’s Jane Pettit Bradley building, a wall of windows spans the length of the lab, allowing natural light to flood the facilities opening up the expansive facility even more.
Lubar Emerging Technology Center
The Lubar Emerging Technology Center (ETC) is a place where MIAD students, staff and faculty engage with technologies as they develop. The purpose of the Lubar ETC is to help students learn how to learn to use technology to support their creative practice. All students have full access to the center, regardless of course of study or discipline.
Lubar Innovation Center
The MIAD Lubar Innovation Center connects real-world clients with our best and brightest students.
Through our creative development program, we foster innovative and entrepreneurial thinking to challenge our students’ individual interests, support academic programming and collaborate with corporate and nonprofit partners.
Printmaking Lab
MIAD’s Printmaking Lab is a unique space on the third floor overlooking the Milwaukee River. It includes a full letterpress shop, intaglio relief printing shop, photo darkroom, lithography shop, screen printing and paper making capabilities and a risograph printer.
Textiles Lab
MIAD’s Textiles Lab is a textiles based workspace open to students in all disciplines. Located in the sunlit, room 250, the lab houses the industry-grade equipment and materials. The lab is monitored and maintained by the Textiles Lab Technician and knowledgeable student workers. Curriculum based sewing, such as the Sophomore Industrial Design Backpack project, Concept to Pattern course, Visual Language embroidery project and a variety of NSP projects including clothing design, felting, quilt making and fabric dyeing are accomplished in the Textiles Lab. This lab, open to all students, is designed for technical skill building, conceptual advancement and exploratory research.
News
FYE Juried Media Arts Festival 2024 celebrates first-year student works
Seven students received awards at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design’s juried FYE Media Arts Festival – an in-house screening and celebration of video, animation and sound design works by current and former First-Year Experience (FYE) students held on November 26. The 56 entries were judged by multimedia and filmmaking professionals Emma B. Barany, Gabe Leistekow and Sara Sowell.
MIAD professor brings love of branding to projects and students
Brian Bowles ’01, professor of Communication Design at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), finds freelance projects “deeply fulfilling” and beneficial to himself and to his students.
Independence First and MIAD students produce adaptive clothing
Students in a junior-level Fashion and Apparel Design class at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) collaborated with Independence First to design adaptive clothing. Two Independence First employees worked closely with MIAD students on customized outfits specific to their needs and preferences.
‘GQ Rebranded’ series is a hit for MIAD alum’s new studio
When Justin Thomas Kay ’04 (Communication Design) opened his own studio, JTK Studio, Inc., in New York City early this year, he hoped that his work “would contribute positively to helping to make things look nicer and more enjoyable and speak honestly to people broadly.” The new GQ Sports series “GQ Rebranded” turned out to be a good fit to do just that.
MIAD student support system receives national SMILE Award
Choose Mental Health, the national voice for children’s mental health, named the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) the 2024 SMILE Award–Organization Winner for the college’s commitment to promoting mental health and well-being among its students.