Dave Gottwald is a visual designer, design educator, and award-winning writer. His research explores the theming of consumer spaces and interplay between the built and the virtual. Gottwald is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design of the College of Art & Architecture at the University of Idaho where he teaches interaction design, experiential design for the built environment, exhibit design, and typography.

Dave is a co-editor for and contributor to Virtual Interiorities, a three-volume collection now available in eBook and softcover from Carnegie Mellon ETC Press. The collection links ongoing discussions in the humanities, film, game studies, architecture, and design disciplines under the aegis of what “virtual” means in a socio-spatial context.

Most recently he is co-author, with Dr. Benjamin George (Utah State University), of Disney and the Theming of the Contemporary Zoo: Kingdoms of Artifice. The book is now available for pre-order from Bloomsbury Academic, Studies in Disney and Culture.

Dave has been published in Disegno—Journal of Design Culture, Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, The International Journal of the Image, The International Journal of Architectonic, Spatial, and Environmental Design, The International Journal of the Constructed Environment, and Landscape Research Record.

Themerica™ began as my MFA design thesis. I started the research in earnest in the summer of 2007, and maintained a travel/photography blog through 2008 which is archived here. Upon taking a professorship at the University of Idaho in 2016, I have recommitted to this work as my creative scholarship focus. As I continue my research, this blog will serve as a home for travel photography and site analysis.