About

Welcome to Design Thinking.

In this class we will think about design.   

This course will focus on the concepts that drive the contemporary practice of graphic design and the larger discipline of Design (yes, with a capital “D”) that includes creative fields such as architecture, industrial design, urban design, social design, and systems thinking. We’ll examine the ways in which graphic design informs and intersects these and other contexts.

Students will seek an understanding of the ways design functions in the world at large, and will work to better understand how their own work and their own creative practice fit into different situations.

Most of your studio classes focus on the HOW of design. This class will focus on the WHY.

How Does This Class Work?

We will ask a lot of questions. We may come up with some answers, but more than likely we will uncover more questions. We will read, we will research, we will write, and we will talk. We will collaborate with each other, take walks, go on field trips and learn to see the world around us through a new lens. We will engage in inquiry and exploration.

Design exists in THE WORLD, and so it would be a disservice to all of us to stay inside a classroom the whole time. We will be using the world around us as a living learning laboratory. 

The purpose of this class is to think critically about the practice of design. You are studying to be a graphic designer, and in order to make successful and relevant work, you must THINK as well as MAKE. This class is intended to make your brain explode. 

In a good way.