Bio

John Sharp is a game designer, graphic designer, art historian and educator. He makes games, teaches game design and other creative pursuits, and researches and writes about games, play, design, and art.

John is the Associate Professor of Games and Learning in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. Along with Colleen Macklin, John co-directs PETLab (Prototyping, Education and Technology Lab), a research group focused on games and their design as a form of social discourse.

He has two published books, Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Games and Art (The MIT Press, 2015) and Games, Design & Play: A Detailed Approach to Iterative Game Design (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2016) and two forthcoming books — Fun, Taste and Games (co-authored with David Thomas, 2017),  and Iterate: Ten Perspectives on Design and Failure (The MIT Press, co-authored with Colleen Macklin, 2018).

John’s curation work includes “Spacewar!: Video Games Blast Off” at the Museum of the Moving Image, and co-curation of “XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design” at the Museum of Design Atlanta.

Along with Colleen Macklin (Associate Professor, Design & Technology, Parsons the New School for Design) and Eric Zimmerman (Arts Professor, New York University Game Center), John is a member of the game design collective Local No. 12 a company focused on finding play in cultural practices. And along with Peter Berry, John is a partner in Supercosm, where he focuses on interaction and game design for arts and education clients.