Arunas Oslapas
Professor
About
Arunas Oslapas spends most of his academic months experimenting and learning design principles with his passionate students as they collectively attempt to understand the profession of industrial design. With an uncanny ability to never say ‘no’, he punishes himself with outside projects ranging from creative museum exhibits to recycled metal baskets. Life is short, so he indulges in the mountain sports of skiing, hiking, and fly-fishing and tries to spend each winter break with his family south of the border where they practice their Spanish and increase their tolerance for spicy food.
Arunas attended Montana State University and the University of Illinois and got some degrees. He started his career in Chicago as a space planner and draftsman and has worked for a film studio, office furniture manufacturer, and has taught at Kendall College of Art & Design and Brigham Young University. For the past 25 years Arunas has taught industrial design at Western Washington University. During this time he and his wife Kathryn, founded WOW design, a product design consultancy that has spread its tentacles into graphic design, carbon fiber snowshoes, games, and an assortment of consumer and industrial products. A more recent venture is Red Rivet Studios, which specializes in recycled metal baskets and colorful metal wall quilts, which are sold throughout the northwest in juried fine art festivals. But their greatest accomplishment has been creating three little designers who have rearranged their furniture and their lives and have finally left the nest to make room for the grandchildren!!!