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

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

This course will cover all aspects of designing comprehensive art and photographic books. We will examine the use of type in layouts, editing images, grids, scale, and pacing. Particular attention will be paid to certain elements of design production, including the visual, tactile, and aesthetic qualities of paper, printing, binding, color separation, and advanced techniques in reproduction, namely duotone and three-tone in black and white photography. In the first part of the semester students will design the layout and the corresponding dust jacket for a photographic book. The material will include a number of original black and white photographs from one of the very well known French photographers. In the second part of the semester, students will be given the choice between designing a book based on their own interests and completing a book design project using assigned material.

Elective

This graduate-level studio elective – Data Narratives – will explore the use of data visualization in creating complex narrative experiences for viewers and readers. The course will serve as a technical primer in how to write code that compiles, analyzes and visualizes data, but it will also deepen the abilities of students that have some existing skill set in these areas.

“Data” will be defined in a broad sense, and course examples will include formats like text and image analysis, as well as spatial data and cartography. Students will be encouraged to work with subjects and sources that intersect with other projects they’re undertaking at RISD.

The course will examine the core design considerations in the creation of world-class visualization, as well as approaches to the field’s “hard problems” such as variability and uncertainty. It will also interrogate the fundamental tensions that exist within storytelling across all mediums, with reading and discussion on story structure, narrative ethics, and the narrative lens.

Elective

This workshop will introduce students to the foundational tenets of digital 3-dimensional modeling through the lens of the graphic designer. Using 3D-modeling and sculpting software students will learn strategies for creating virtual forms in different contexts. Once comfortable with modeling students will be introduced to the various elements of rendering including shaders, lighting, and the virtual camera. After successfully rendering scenes students will learn to composite their renderings with 2D graphic design work as well as create animations for video and motion graphics.

Students will be required to purchase a $60 one-year MAXON ONE student license to complete this course.

Elective

This workshop will introduce students to the foundational tenets of digital 3-dimensional modeling through the lens of the graphic designer. Using 3D-modeling and sculpting software students will learn strategies for creating virtual forms in different contexts. Once comfortable with modeling students will be introduced to the various elements of rendering including shaders, lighting, and the virtual camera. After successfully rendering scenes students will learn to composite their renderings with 2D graphic design work as well as create animations for video and motion graphics.

Students will be required to purchase a $60 one-year MAXON ONE student license to complete this course.  

Elective

This workshop will introduce students to the foundational tenets of digital 3-dimensional modeling through the lens of the graphic designer. Using 3D-modeling and sculpting software students will learn strategies for creating virtual forms in different contexts. Once comfortable with modeling students will be introduced to the various elements of rendering including shaders, lighting, and the virtual camera. After successfully rendering scenes students will learn to composite their renderings with 2D graphic design work as well as create animations for video and motion graphics.

Students will be required to purchase a $60 one-year MAXON ONE student license to complete this course.  

Elective

This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in making your projects. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage interplay between screen prints and digital prints. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally. No previous experience required.

Elective

This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in making your projects. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage interplay between screen prints and digital prints. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally. No previous experience required.

Elective

This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in making your projects. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage interplay between screen prints and digital prints. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally. No previous experience required.

Elective

This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in making your projects. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage interplay between screen prints and digital prints. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally. No previous experience required.

Elective

This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in making your projects. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage interplay between screen prints and digital prints. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally. No previous experience required.

Elective

This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in making your projects. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage interplay between screen prints and digital prints. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally. No previous experience required.

Elective

Publishing has never been a fixed notion. What is publishing today? remains a relevant inquiry, but with an increasingly expanded field of response, as platforms, channels and modes of production mutate and multiply. Let's begin with the post, exposing its origins as a physical note publicly nailed to a piece of wood. Its descendants persist today, plainly visible on the wall, in the feed and in the stream as traces of a deeper history of documents - the scriptural economy. Is posting (always) publishing? We'll examine substrate, blankness and the possibility of saying nothing as a post-media publishing strategy. And as certain legacies recede (privacy, authorship, copyright), how is publishing still "making public?" Let's unpack (and entangle) these and other ways to explore the public circulation of work in a post-digital space. We'll draw trajectories to and from the emergence of the networked artist in the 20th century, into the last twenty years, and particularly around the last two, as self-publishing becomes more and more inseparable from the artist's ambient practice (and work) itself. The semester will be devoted to the creation of our own performing publishing studio, disseminating work as a highly diffused, ongoing performance, rather than discrete events. The development of publishing manifestos and projects, working in public, research-based exploration, non-traditional tools and platforms, experimentation and collaboration will be encouraged.

Elective

This course focuses on advanced composition in Graphic Design and Typography using an array of materials, techniques and formats. Form remains an area of study in graphic design that does not need an application, only a surface. Emphasis will be placed on experimental form-making/image-making using generative and iterative approaches. Form need not follow function. Studio assignments are supported by lectures showing contemporary graphic form, from historical to contemporary work, that are effective and evocative. This elective aims to build a collection of work that can be shared with the larger graphic design community.

Elective

This course focuses on advanced composition in Graphic Design and Typography using an array of materials, techniques and formats. Form remains an area of study in graphic design that does not need an application, only a surface. Emphasis will be placed on experimental form-making/image-making using generative and iterative approaches. Form need not follow function. Studio assignments are supported by lectures showing contemporary graphic form, from historical to contemporary work, that are effective and evocative. This elective aims to build a collection of work that can be shared with the larger graphic design community.

Elective

Web as Medium 2 is an advanced studio course for students who have been exploring browser-based technologies as a creative medium. Students will build on their critical understanding of code to investigate the cultural, social, and philosophical implications of the internet, culminating in the creation of self-driven projects as their responses. The course will provide a space for students to conduct in-depth experiments on the web, fostering active skill-sharing and knowledge exchange among peers. The course features student-led research/workshops as a point of engagement with relevant technologies and its discourse, along with self-driven projects that utilize the browser as a space to experiment and communicate. Prerequisite knowledge of or coursework in HTML/CSS/JS basics is required — students are expected to have solid understanding of network technologies, including how to publish web pages to the internet.

Elective

How do you turn an object, such as a flat, digital screen, into something people can interact with and understand? This question underscores the field of user interface and experience (UI/UX) design, which aims to create legible, meaningful experiences for virtually everything we interact with. In this studio elective, we’ll study UI/UX from a digital perspective, exploring the interface design of various mediums including apps, websites, operating systems, video games, appliances, exhibitions, and more. Instruction and projects will focus primarily on using Figma to create mockups and prototypes, with digressions into practices for user experience research. While this is not a coding course, lectures and exercises will explore the relationship between designers and developers. Familiarity with graphic design and typography is recommended but not required.

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)