Drawing Back the Curtain

By: Veronica Lynagh, VP of Strategic Initiatives, International Center for Creativity

Academic and ICC Instructor, Gabe Pyle, found his way to the ICC first as a graduate of its first ever Industrial and Innovative class in 2012; today he fosters his love for creativity, problem solving and design to the nearly 60 students he teaches at the ICC.

Creativity was a huge part of Gabe’s upbringing, and it was always encouraged. He grew up in a family full of educators (his father is a retired educator of 40 years, older brother, grandmother, brother-in-law, etc.) “I grew up in a creative family full of educators, I figured I was going to be an art teacher…and I told myself there is no way I’m doing that.” Ironically today, Gabe teaches students how to communicate their ideas through sketching and visual storytelling, how to think like a designer, so he jokes, he is…at least in part, an art teacher! 

Pyle, a very gifted artist, felt that creation of art for the soul “wasn’t my thing and not what I felt God was calling me to” says Pyle. He was a sophomore in high school when he heard about career in industrial design, where he learned some artists design things for usability, and he felt like God was pulling back the curtain and said “this is what I want you to do.” He couldn’t find Christian universities that were teaching industrial design so he sort of gave up on that dream decided to go to Cedarville and study studio art and engineering; he recalls that he doesn’t remember really talking to anyone about wanting to be an industrial designer so there was no one that helped guide him. Yet his sophomore year he shared his dreams with ICC ambassador and Cedarville advisor Terry Chamberlain who told Pyle Cedarville was on the cusp of launching an industrial design program and Pyle was just in time for it; a second time that God drew back the curtain and showed Pyle he had plans for him. Without having to retake or add any additional classes, Pyle became one of three students in the first ICC class, he studied industrial design in a small little house behind the nursing building on Cedarville’s main campus. The house had been gutted recalls Pyle “drafting tables were added; it oddly even still had a bathtub.”

Pyle recalls that when he started applying for jobs out school “God had been so clearly pulling me to the ICC and that he has something in mind for me…I didn’t feel let down when I didn’t get the jobs I applied for; on the last day of class, the three founders (Jim, JD and Tom) they sat me down and said we have a class of 14 coming up; would you be willing to join the ICC teaching staff, It was a the third time God was drawing back the curtain for me; this is what I had in store for you to help the ICC grow.”

“Now the program is unrecognizable from what I experienced my junior and senior year; I’m thrilled with what the Seniors are creating.” Pyle now serves as the academic advisor to all Junior and Senior Industrial and Innovative Design students, and instructor at the ICC overseeing the guidance and studies of the senior students each year at the newly remodeled ICC Studio in Dublin, Ohio. 

Anyone who has been a student or colleague of Pyle would tell you his passion for teaching, and learning, is pervasive in his work “one of my favorite aspects of teaching is to try again and do better every single year; I get to see where something I’ve tried worked; something I’ve tried did not work as well and improve the experience the next year” spoken like a true iterative designer.

Pyle oversees the senior capstone experience at the International Center for Creativity. Seniors decide how they want to demonstrate their skills as a designer, and they have a great deal of authorship and freedom in how they go about that process. The process begins with seniors pitching their design concepts and ideas to the ICC leadership team in as early as December of their senior year. 

This past year Pyle proudly brags on his students as he talks about their range of designs to solve a plethora of product and architectural design challenges: 

• Student designed a motel chain for national parks keeping with the aesthetics of the national park it was associated with – “After seeing this student work I wanted to go stay there and wished her lodging was real” says Pyle.

• Design an underwater city called the Trident Research Center, the team of students it in a very believable way; this is going to happen, by 2050 it will be here says Pyle and it will be a reality to visit and stay underwater.

• Students who developed a motorized wheelchair that would grow with the child and allow play with the child and other children.

• Furniture designed both comfortable and to improve posture

• A new modular fridge design to tackle food waste and habits.

• A new bedside device that encouraged healthy sleeping habits allowing you to leave your phone in another room

“The beauty is that we didn’t come up with any of these projects, the students pitched these projects to us; rarely if ever do we say no, more frequently we say yes with some adaptions in timeframe” Pyle says. Students set their own milestones and deliverables at the ICC, it is a student-driven learning environment, and that part Pyle explains hasn’t changed since the beginning of the Innovative and Industrial Design program’s inception his very first year.  “What has changed is our expectations and much of that has happened organically because the juniors see what the last class before it has has done and they say, “I can do better than that.”

The challenge he says is that he only gets his students for two years “I’d love to spend more time with them; they are all such wonderful people, there is so much more that I’d love to teach them.”

Pyle has been married to Jules for 5 years, they just bought their first home in North Linden, Ohio and they are pet parents to two cats. He is the author and illustrator of the children’s book “14 animals (that are definitely not an octopus)” and he continues to write and illustrate other children’s books. Like many industrial designers, he’s a creative at heart and jokes about being a “serial project starter” so he enjoys drawing, sculpting, and designing graphic t-shirts!