How do designers respond, think about and make for equitable futures? How much do we need to scrap or throw under the proverbial bus (ourselves included)? Unmaking studio is a space that explores possibilities through collaborative experimentation and reflection on how we can design in pluralistic ways. We will intentionally break habits, structures, tools, methods, and models of thought that have become canonized as the way to make Graphic Design. Along the way, we will experiment, at times in collaboration, with a series of prompts that explore analog and digital outcomes — forms, images, stories, languages, publications, the unknown, the emergent — thinking about the stories our work tells about ourselves (our lineages, our choices, and our values), our communities, and how all of this has the potential to radically and joyfully shift how we engage as human beings.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

This studio course, as groundwork for the graduate thesis, will emphasize inquiry as a primary means for learning. Through making, reflection, collaboration, and critique, we will explore the underlying principles that design objects require, and synthesize theory and practice as necessary partners in graphic design. We will look at the designer's role in the process of revealing and making meaning - as an objective mediator, and as an author/producer, integrating content and form across projects as visual expressions of the preliminary thesis investigation.

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design

This course is a continuation of the work begun in fall semester's Graduate Thesis I (GRAPH 327G). The 6-credit studio component is complemented with a 3-credit thesis writing seminar, together guiding the synthesis of independent visual and verbal investigations into a coherent thesis body of work. The MFA degree requires completion of a graduate thesis. The thesis, as a major undertaking for advanced study and personal development, also assists the student to direct a program of study for an experience that best serves that individual's interests and needs. The thesis is an inquiry into the process, expression and function of the visual in graphic design. Visual search is the primary means by which to develop and substantiate original work which provides proof of concept for the thesis argument, critique, or point of view. The graduate student is encouraged to go beyond established models and to project his/her unique character in the thesis rather than to evidence vocational training, which is implicit. The productions can involve any medium suitable to need and content. Ultimately the thesis is submitted as a written document supported by a body of visual work that is a meaningful synthesis of the visual and verbal, and a lasting contribution to the field of graphic design. Two copies of the document remain, one for the Library and one for the department. Completion is required before graduation as stipulated by the College.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design

The degree project is an independent project in graphic design subject to the department's explicit approval, as the final requirement for graduation for the BFA Degree. Visiting critics will be invited to review the completed project. Students are only eligible to enroll in this course if all credit requirements for the degree are complete in this final semester and the student is enrolled with full-time status. Graphic Design students on advanced standing who wish to be considered for Degree project in the Fall of their senior year must apply to the department head.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design