Join a community of thesis writers, whether as a first-year graduate seeking to unearth a direction for the Master’s written document or as a second-year graduate engaging the completion process. In an atmosphere that allows you to open up, “stretch out” in reflection, and dynamically gather in exchange, this writing-intensive seminar will enable you to explore relevant ideas, themes, core values, and conduct research in support of the inquiry process. Sessions involve scrutinizing various angles of your perspective as an artist/designer and to write from these angles to discover the emerging aspects of solutions that matter. Each class will suggest a specific theme or principle of inflection to precipitate what is needed for the work’s progress. Included will be several forms of writing: narrative essay, poetic formations, lists, annotation, review, extended caption, as well as several levels of research: bibliographic, archival, fieldwork, dialogue, interviews. Emphasis will be on maps of meaning that will be used as a way to further processes of ideation and understanding. At the conclusion of the seminar, you will have a conceptual focus for your thesis that is clearly formulated visually and verbally. The writings and insights from this time can then be used productively to further the breadth and depth of your ideas through open-ended exploration and self-generated work.

The course aims to create sufficient awareness of what yields life on earth, and a complementary biocentric view of the world. New ethical and critical challenges are continually presented to human society with the growth of material science and its implications for design; the course introduces sources and research references to assist with our understanding of these challenges. We explore aspects of human knowledge of living systems, providing a research-based approach to such topics as BioDesign; biomimicry in materials, processes, and structures; functional morphology and the cognitive phenomena of Biophilia. The 'affinities and aversions' we as humans have regarding natural living systems are in everything: from the spaces we inhabit to the metaphors we employ in order to understand complexity in general, including issues connected with health, recuperation and resilience. Using the recently extended facilities and resources of the Edna Lawrence Nature Lab, faculty and graduate students together create opportunities to experiment, observe, and learn about the networked aspects of living systems, materials, structures and processes. Theoretical frameworks associated with the biology of living systems, the growth and formation of natural materials including the contemporary revolutions in evolutionary theory are introduced and examples discussed with visiting specialists.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

Elective

The course aims to create sufficient awareness of what yields life on earth, and a complementary biocentric view of the world. New ethical and critical challenges are continually presented to human society with the growth of material science and its implications for design; the course introduces sources and research references to assist with our understanding of these challenges. We explore aspects of human knowledge of living systems, providing a research-based approach to such topics as BioDesign; biomimicry in materials, processes, and structures; functional morphology and the cognitive phenomena of Biophilia. The 'affinities and aversions' we as humans have regarding natural living systems are in everything: from the spaces we inhabit to the metaphors we employ in order to understand complexity in general, including issues connected with health, recuperation and resilience. Using the recently extended facilities and resources of the Edna Lawrence Nature Lab, faculty and graduate students together create opportunities to experiment, observe, and learn about the networked aspects of living systems, materials, structures and processes. Theoretical frameworks associated with the biology of living systems, the growth and formation of natural materials including the contemporary revolutions in evolutionary theory are introduced and examples discussed with visiting specialists.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

Elective

This course frames contemporary art as a set of conversations, arguments and counterarguments that have been proposed in key exhibitions, works of art, and critical writings produced across multiple continents over the past three decades. We will identify and critique the ideas that have shaped contemporary art, discuss their impetus, and examine their assumptions. Through such conversations, the course presents contemporary art as a form of processing a present and a past in which the artwork is indivisible from the dialogues and conversations that create, define and continue to change it. The title of the class alludes not only to the idea of making and reading contemporary art as cognitive, rhetorical and dialogic activities, but also to the art world as a series of geographically dispersed and temporally promiscuous processes, deeply resistant to modernist systems of order, periodization and mapping. The course combines lectures by the instructor, as well as by visiting critics and art historians, which outline some of the key issues and historical pressures of contemporary art, alongside seminar-type discussions where we process the lectures and select readings as a group.

Elective

The course offers graduate students a forum for exploring historical and theoretical foundations of contemporary design and craft arts. Readings, discussions, lectures, and writing projects address a range of contexts for the practice of design, from materials and making, to ways that objects are encountered, consumed, and lived with, to design's promises and limitations for dealing with global crises of climate, poverty, conflict, disease, and displacement. Weekly meetings are structured around critical themes selected through student input. Readings and case studies offer points of departure for discussion and writing. Guest lectures by designers, curators, and critics provide viewpoints on contemporary practice. Culminating with a final artist statement and presentation, the work undertaken throughout the term will be oriented toward developing historical and critical frameworks in which to situate students' own studio and research practices.

Elective

The unknown gap of the 'betwixt and between' is a space of great curiosity and charge. It is a space that has captured the imagination of many artists, designers and writers throughout time. The main interest in this course is to investigate the nature of this space, how it is experienced, understood and given meaning from multiple viewpoints in art, design and literature, and ways in which it can become a space of significance for our practice as artists and designers. As background to our own research, we examine features of the betwixt and between as it is evoked in the writings of the pre-Socratic thinkers, the theories of anthropologist Victor Turner, the lectures of composer John Cage, William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin's book titled The Third Mind, and philosopher Gaston Bachelard's view of spatial poetics. Artists also walk us to that space, as is the case with Eva Hesse's threshold Works on Paper, Anselm Kiefer's preoccupation with ambivalence, and Anish Kapoor's sublime voids. Most importantly, we will make and write as a way to see and understand the various forms and ways the betwixt and between presents itself in our own work.

Elective

This Exhibition design course supports the complex and expanding roles of today’s designers and artists, and introduces students to the many facets of exhibition design, from concept development through execution. Exhibition design showcases the interdisciplinary nature of our industries, and are a powerful way to shape how stories, ideas, and objects are experienced. This course will cover topics including curatorial practice, identity design, wayfinding, exhibition & spatial design, promotional, publication catalog, and community engagement.

The class will work collaboratively to develop an exhibition that will have an opening near the end of wintersession, and will include a student-led workshop with a publication hand out. The outcomes will include two exhibitions: a larger group show in the GD Commons (TBD) and a smaller tabletop or vitrine exhibition in partnership with Fleet Library Special Collections. Especially as students prepare for senior shows and departmental exhibitions, this is an excellent opportunity to engage with all the steps of an exhibition execution. Guest critics, field trips to the RISD museum to meet with their curatorial and exhibition design teams, as well as meeting the librarians at Fleet Library will help inform our process and work. Students will engage with key questions such as: What is the narrative we are trying to share? How do we shape an audience’s experience? What role does design play in exhibition-making?

Elective

This course is an overview of the basic principles of type design. The focus is on negative space, words, and readability. Students will gain a deeper understanding of typography and increased insight into existing typefaces.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)

This 3-credit studio course will teach design fundamentals to the elective non-GD major students entering the field of Graphic Design from other disciplines, and will feature in-class instruction which may include 2D and 3D form basic principles of color; image-making from photography, drawing, collage, etc. point and plane / figure and ground exercises; sequencing and exposure to various formats, etc.

Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday. 

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)

This 3-credit course will teach advanced design principles of formal structures, relations, and systems to the eclectic non-GD major students entering the field of Graphic Design from other disciplines.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department.

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)

This seminar will present a forum for discussion on critical issues in graphic design, including: design's context within culture and experience; theory and its relation to practice; and current practice and its models. The course will combine formats of lecture, discussion, small groups, and collaboration to explore the porous borders of graphic design thought and making.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design

The objective of this course is to assist students in the development of methodologies for exploration, investigation, and construction of a well-designed proposal of thesis work. This seminar provides students with a variety of discursive and exploratory means to identify, locate, reflect on, and develop areas of interest to pursue in the evolution of individual thesis planning, culminating in the presentation of the thesis proposal.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design

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.

Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday. 

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design

This studio course is based on the premise that the narrative shaping of information is fundamental to human communication. As active participants in cultural production, graphic designers naturally collaborate within varied areas of expertise, assuming a documentary role in how society views itself. Narrative methods enable us to speak to (and through) any content with a sense of the story it has to tell - visually representing historical, curatorial, scientific, and abstract ideas and events. Students will explore design as a process of storytelling that includes linear and non-linear relationships, with an emphasis on developing formal strategies for multiple approaches to shaping a narrative experience from given as well as self-generated content. Particular emphasis is on sequence, framing, cause and effect, the relationships between elements, and the synthesis of parts into wholes. With text and image, and across media, we employ narrative methods to make sense of complex content meant to be shared and understood.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (2yr)

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.

Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday. 

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

This graduate-level studio elective course will use the term "variable" as a core trajectory through the semester, and will focus on methodologies to visualize these variable design spaces; exploring the potentials of working within single to multi-axis frameworks. Inside these spaces, instances (artifacts) can be interpolated (generated). From analogue tools to variable letterforms, this elective will consider the technical and poetic potentials related to the process of interpolation; from observing two knowns, an unknown can be defined.

This elective will consider typography and typographic technology as generative worlds of practice for study; containing endless rabbit holes to explore, engage with, and return to. We will specifically explore variability in relation to the production of type, and curiously chart the number of ways in which the tools/programs of type production can be used (and mis-used) to animate forms (letters or otherwise). We will navigate the relationship between the history of code, and the history of font production, to find ourselves making within the current context of variable type technologies. Primarily a studio-centric ‘off-road typography’ making and prototyping environment, the course’s critical dialogue will focus on the transformation of language and communication through these variable design processes.

Elective

Graduate Typography I through III (GRAPH-332G/342G/352G) are a sequence of courses that focus on the subject of typography. This sequence covers the fundamentals of typography, its theory, practice, technology and history. Studies range from introductory through advanced levels. Grad Typography I includes: the study of letterforms, type design, proportion, hierarchy, legibility, and structures for composition of multiple type elements. Aspects of contemporary practice and theory are integrated into research and discussion.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)

The second semester continues the development of typographic practice by exploring the conditions in which type operates: the systems needed to work with varying scales and narrative structures. Students will design large-scale and small-scale work simultaneously; understanding the trade-offs of various formats and contexts. The course also extends basic typesetting into more extended reading experiences. Students will learn to set the conditions for readability by creating order, expressing emotion and making meaning. Students will design and bind a book while understanding how the traditions of the codex relate to onscreen reading. Within the durable form of the book, lies centuries of conventions like indexical systems, footnotes, page matter and more. Students also will become better readers, by engaging with contemporary issues in the field of typography and type design. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class, often on a computer. There is an expectation that students work both individually and in groups and be prepared to speak about their own work and the work of their peers in supportive and respectful ways. A laptop and relevant software are required.

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

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)

Typography III is the culmination of RISD's typography sequence, with an emphasis on typography and contemporary display platforms. Advances in software and hardware have created new opportunities for how language is written, sequenced and accessed. Projects in this semester depend on altered states, where the content, composition, and context all are potentially at play. Students will continue to develop proficiency in designing for static compositions while extending the meaning and voice of that work across multiple platforms. Students will have ample opportunity to further shape their perspective and individual voice in relation to contemporary typography. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class, often on a computer. There is an expectation that students work both individually and in groups and be prepared to speak about their own work and the work of their peers in supportive and respectful ways. A laptop and relevant software are required.

Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday. 

Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)