Increases understanding of the designer's role as problem solver and professional design consultant. Provides opportunity to create new portfolio-quality work and explore development of a personal style. Projects include: a personal identity system with professional level rsum and cover letter, prototyping a complex multipage publication with text and images, a webzine or website, and a branding system.

Great design isn’t just about aesthetics; It’s about understanding the user and their needs. Focused around the theory of design thinking, this course explores how to keep human qualities at the center of design to achieve more innovative and transformative solutions. Students examine the methodology behind design thinking and gain a practical framework of solving design problems using a human-centered approach. 

Applies the formal principles of design in the context of typography. Topics include type history and terminology, display and text type for print and screen communication, typographic hierarchy in information design, bookmaking, and concept-based design through typographic layout and manipulation. Includes lectures, discussions, class critiques, and computer lab sessions.

Social Media and Analytics prepares students to create content and measure its effectiveness across social media platforms. Social Media is an integral part of any communications strategy, and using a 3rd party simulation software, students will have an opportunity to implement social listening techniques and create content that benefits a hypothetical brand. Through this simulation, students use customers’ perception and online activity as a metric to gauge and analyze the effectiveness of the social media content they have created. Students will be taught how to engage in  “social listening” and deepen their understanding of the online marketplace.

Explores the emerging field of information design, narrative, auditory experience, interactivity, and emotional depth. Students will investigate the user experience across desktop, mobile, tablet, and other platforms. Examines the ways motion graphics adds meaning to interactive websites, film credits, television openings, advertising spots, and mobile applications and addresses concepts of a global visual language in which the use of familiar symbols and images transcends spoken language.

Explores creative approaches to acquiring, manipulating, authoring, and disseminating digital images. In the Adobe Creative Suite environment, students combine natural and digital media, working iteratively in order to achieve unique solutions to their challenges. In-depth exploration of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.