Emily Rye
Throughout her entrepreneurial career, Emily Rye has specialized in identity design and branding for arts, culture and education nonprofits. Clients range from after-school arts programs and public libraries to universities and multinational health organizations. She is passionate about working with local small businesses and mission-based clients, believing high-quality design should be accessible to all.
Rye creates a lasting sense of curiosity in her students by encouraging them to trust their instincts while challenging their assumptions through observation, exploration and form-making. Through her mentorship, Rye introduces the idea that agency can be a verb, not just a noun, in one’s design practice.
Maintaining her ancestral roots in pottery, weaving and geology, Rye has an active ceramics and metalworking practice where she reimagines our lived connection to objects. She is a hands-on maker with one eye on the silence of design and the other on the exuberance of natural elements. Her work has been exhibited throughout the area, and she participates in the juried alumni show RISD Craft.
Courses
Fall 2023 Courses
GRAPH 3210-04
DESIGN STUDIO 1
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In the first two semesters of a two-year studio track, students will come into contact with issues and questions that face the contemporary designer. Students will engage with and develop methods to take on these questions: search (formal and intellectual), research, analysis, ideation, and prototyping. Projects will increase in complexity over time, sequenced to evolve from guided inquiry to more open, self-generated methodologies. Some examples of the questions students might work with are: What is graphic? or How are tools shaped by contemporary culture, technology, and convention? or How is a spatial or dimensional experience plotted and communicated? These questions will be accompanied by a mix of precedents, theoretical contexts, readings and presentations, technical and/or formal exercises and working methods.
Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design
GRAPH 3214-04
TYPOGRAPHY I
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Typography 1 is the first in a three-course sequence that introduces students to the fundamentals of typographic practice, both as a set of technical skills and as an expressive medium. This first semester of typography begins fully zoomed-in -- exploring how and why letterforms are formed. Students will work with various tools and materials to construct letters; with attention paid to meaning, voice and the line between language and abstract form. The second part of the semester concerns itself with setting type. Typesetting is the score for the reading experience. Typesetting conventions and nomenclature will be taught by zooming out from the letter, to the word, to the paragraph and to the page. Students will become comfortable with typographic color and texture in a finite static composition. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class. 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 | BFA Graphic Design
Spring 2024 Courses
GRAPH 3211-04
COLOR + SURFACE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design
GRAPH 3211-05
COLOR + SURFACE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design
GRAPH 3220-03
DESIGN STUDIO 2
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In the first two semesters of a two-year studio track, students will come into contact with issues and questions that face the contemporary designer. Students will engage with and develop methods to take on these questions: search (formal and intellectual), research, analysis, ideation, and prototyping. Projects will increase in complexity over time, sequenced to evolve from guided inquiry to more open, self-generated methodologies. Some examples of the questions students might work with are: What is graphic? or How are tools shaped by contemporary culture, technology, and convention? or How is a spatial or dimensional experience plotted and communicated? These questions will be accompanied by a mix of precedents, theoretical contexts, readings and presentations, technical and/or formal exercises and working methods.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design