Dennis L. Kappen

Dennis Kappen is a Canadian Industrial Designer of South Asian origin. He is currently Professor of Industrial Design, teaching in the Bachelors program in Industrial Design at Humber College. He is a design consultant, business strategist and brand experience designer with specialization in interaction design, ergonomics and human factors design, computer aided design and plastics product design. He is also a researcher at UOIT pursuing research in strategic human interaction in the realm of living spaces and spatial interaction for older adults and vulnerable population.
Early life and education.
Kappen was born in Kerala India. He graduated with a Masters in Design in 1992 from the Industrial Design Centre (IDC) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. During his student life he secured two international design awards from Sony Corporation, Japan: an Honourable Mention in the Shapes of Sound to Come International Student Design Competition in 1991 and Second Prize in the International Idea Design Competition in 1992. 
Career in design.
Kappen worked in Mumbai at a design consulting firm from 1992 to 1995 as an industrial designer providing branding and packaging designs to cosmetics containers and perfume bottles. He then secured a full entry scholarship to the Advanced Product Design program at Art Center Europe. He continued to study at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena campus, California. He immigrated to Canada in 1996.
Kappen worked in product design and development for Brita Canada, Black and Decker, Perkin Elmer, MDS-Sciex and G-Tech Corporation, amongst others. His design projects have covered various fields including new technology, consumer products, kiosks and internet technology, medical products and hand held electronic devices. Some of the designs for which he was responsible for were: the Brita Atlantis water filtration jug, a product that was exhibited at the Universal by Design Exhibition, 2000, at the Design Exchange, Toronto; Grass shears for Black & Decker; mass spectrometers for medical electronics firms; automated medical sampling device for Dynacon Inc; and the P5 glove to name a few notable industrial designs.
Kappen incorporated 3D Ideation Inc. a product development firm which provides strategic business innovation through design incorporating the basic values of enhancement of human life, convenience of use, interaction design, human factors and ergonomics and plastic product design.
Academic career.
He is a professor of design at Humber College and teaches in the 4 year Bachelor's program in Industrial Design. His specialization includes human interaction design, ethnographic research, computer aided design and visualization using various 3D modeling tools such as Autodesk Alias, Solidworks and 2D vsualization tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator and web creation software like Flash and Dreamweaver. He is also a researcher at UOIT exploring human interaction design in the context of digital gaming for vulnerable populations under the guidance of Dr. Lennart Nacke, Director of the HCI and Game Science Group. Prior to joining Humber College, he was design strategist and consultant to various companies in Toronto, Canada and in USA. He continues to be engaged in design consulting projects, teaching and research.
Trademarks.
BUSINESS INNOVATION by DESIGN in USA (4065052) and CANADA (TMA819989)