In this collaborative workshop each student will select an individual and tell their story in a variety of design media. Students will be required to develop a humanistic interpretation of their subject. A portion of the classes will take place off campus.

This course will prepare students to identify a product suitable for full-scale development and the audience they aim to target. The semester is divided into four sections: developing a market research survey; writing a comprehensive business plan; e-commerce and e-ideas. In addition there will be seminars on the theory of design and fabrication of design objects, as well as advice on how to produce viable thesis projects that will have marketplace potential.

This course combines the ideas and skills inherent to design and literature towards an integrated, meaningful expression. Throughout the semester students will develop their creative writing skills through a sequence of exercises in continuous writing, observational writing, titling objects and images, theatrical improvisation, storytelling, writing from different points of view, structuring a narrative, writing as visual composition, reworking and editing. Selected texts from writing exercises are then set into a variety of book formats using any combination of typography, images and symbols. Emphasis is placed on finding a visual form that emerges out of the meaning, feeling and inherent shape of an original text. Historical and contemporary examples of "visual text" will be presented. The course focuses on the book format as a primary vehicle.

This course will intensely assist students in the preparatory market and audience research needed to identify a product suitable for long-term development. The semester is divided into three sections: proposal writing and editing, material research and development and media exploration. In addition there will be numerous off-site visits to related exhibitions and resource centers. The end result is a written, edited and designed proposal book and fabricated prototype.

The course is structured to help students examine their assumptions about their own work. It begins with a restaurant project where many design considerations intersect; i.e. communication, service, interior spaces, lighting, color, comfort, etc.

The course continues with a series of exercises that intend to disrupt or compliment the students working methods. Ultimately, the objective is to develop the students awareness of what they are already doing.

This course will examine the general concepts of law and intellectual property law as it applies to the practice of design. The basic legal issues of contract and property law, within the creative context, will be examined. Among the topics explored will be the work for hire agreement, the consignment agreement and the agency agreement. The law of copyright, trademark, and patents also will be explored. Issues such as registering a copyright, copyright infringement, registering a trademark and trade dress infringement and patents (in particular design patents) will be examined from the perspective of the professional designer. In addition, design and information issues presented by new technology, such as the Web, will be included throughout the context of this course.

It is widely assumed that movies, literature, and music get to our emotional core. At the same time it seems to be more difficult for design to achieve that same thing. In this class we will explore this possibility with three individual assignments.

With the aid of a faculty advisor, students will complete a thesis project--a finished product ready to be marketed. Students will be required to make a final presentation to the thesis committee for their approval. The MFA degree may not be conferred without approval of this final project by the committee.

A class devoted to the "how" in the question-how do I begin to create a 'prototype" model of my product idea? This class will devote attention to both you and your specific product's prototype development. By exploring different materials available and demonstrating methods of working with those materials, together, we will reach the final goal of a finished product.

The venerable gallery launch exhibition is giving way to online and mobile platforms. To stay current and push the boundaries, this course will employ video and interactive media presentations as a means for thesis students to share their final projects in a more dynamic fashion. 30-second to two-minute video “promotions” or “documentaries” are incorporated into online and mobile platforms that serve to introduce their concepts and material results. The course is divided into conception and production sections. Students will develop narratives through storyboards and scripts. Shooting, lighting, sound, editing and authoring skills and programs will be taught. The final result is a 360 media launch, with a project video incorporated into both Ipad and online platforms.

This class will be an in-depth practicum for publishing deeply interactive, high-design fidelity digital publications for iPad and Android tablet devices. The course—taught by two of the pioneers of iPad magazine publishing—will cover the necessary design principles for beautiful and engaging digital publication design, with a focus on theory, structure, and practice for real-life deployment on the Adobe DPS platform. Technical proficiency with InDesign CS5 or higher is essential, as students will employ new and evolving techniques for authoring interactive features. Adobe DPS proficiency is not essential on entry, but a baseline understanding of the system and its capabilities is recommended. http://www.adobe.com/products/digitalpublishingsuite/ Students will complete a series of assignments that will culminate in the publication of a final project into the iPad App Store. This is a class where sudents will leverage all of their design skills—from written communication to HTML authoring to video production—and assimilate them into a compellingly designed digital magazine or book, so participants should come to class armed with ideas and materials for integration into a living publication.

In this intensive class, students will develop a viable and professional pitch book to use as a tool to bring their thesis product to potential producers, investors and the market. In addition, they will be given tutorials on how to deliver a verbal pitch to potential backers and clients.

This course is an intensive 8-week project-based course. It seeks to instill in students the capacity for designing system using digital and non digital components. The core of the class is master three crucial skillets: narrative, structure, and flow. Students will produce projects with increasing complexity, leveraging design precedents, user insights, information architecture, media integration, and future developments.

Design Decisions is a course on design thinking and design making. It acknowledges that designers deal with scale, and as a result are capable of creating powerful design gestures that multiply out into powerful design consequence. The course is hands-on; students build prototypes and create sketches each week, exploring design through various design lenses and personal point of view.

This course provides students with tools to build a business case into their theses. Through a series interactive workshops students will develop strategies to win support for their projects. By interpreting and deepening their summer research, students will articulate value created for targeted user segments and define the markets those segments represent. Exercises in Discovery-Driven Planning will familiarize students with income statements and help to develop roadmaps for iterative learning. Students will outline pricing and create tools for understanding revenue and cost calculations. In addition, the course will cover fundraising basics, team building and techniques for business storytelling.

This course will introduce students to fundamentals of user-centered interactive design. We will examine how to put your users at the heart of the experience and explore the fundamental building blocks of all successful interactive products. Students will work on a semester long project which will take them through the core phases of creating a successful digital product. All projects must consider how their product will adapt to specific platforms including desktop, mobile and tablet. Guest speakers will share their insights of creating and working in the interactive realm.

A six-part lecture and presentation about our graphic designer ancestors. Each session will cover a particular movement from the last 150 years. The course is given by a professional designer presenting significant historical work, primarily to influence emerging graphic designers in originating their own creativity. In addition to slides actual samples will be presented. General discussion will be encouraged and students will relate their current work to that of the past.

Lectures on the history of graphic design. Themes include racism and design, symbolism and the swastika, type and culture, Modernism and the Modern, avant-garde magazines of the 20th century, the 60s design culture, 20s- 30s book jackets, and more. The final lecture is devoted to the life of Paul Rand.

JUST TYPE is an exploration of contemporary and classic typefaces that students will apply to ten short projects over the course of the semester. Every week, each student will be given a font to research and work with on a specific project. In some cases, we'll work in class with printouts and glue sticks. Seriously. At the end, a type catalogue of the fonts used will be compiled, and the class projects shown as examples of the faces in action. There will be no images,color or devices used--JUST TYPE.

How do you use design to tell engaging stories? How can you help people understand something new? And how can you communicate clearly and/or appropriately—both in your work and about your work?

This isn’t a public-speaking class, but you’ll do some. This isn’t an information-design class, but you’ll make some. And this isn’t a portfolio class, but you’ll think about your work and how others experience it.

During this class we’ll work on projects with different sets of constraints, hear from guest speakers with different points of view, and think about speaking to different audiences through (and about) design.

This course will introduce students to faculty thesis consultants who will assign exercises that are designed to initiate R&D and jumpstart the conceptual process for the thesis project. By the end of the course, students will have identified at least two areas of interest to be further explored for the final thesis.