The execution of two assigned design projects provides the framework for a thorough examination of the design process. This structured and intensive studio will focus on the relationship between the implementation of sound design methodologies and successful problem solving in the design process. This first studio experience is intended to provide the methodological infrastructure for the remainder of the M.I.D. thesis experience.

Preference is given to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

The execution of two assigned design projects provides the framework for a thorough examination of the design process. This structured and intensive studio will focus on the relationship between the implementation of sound design methodologies and successful problem solving in the design process. This first studio experience is intended to provide the methodological infrastructure for the remainder of the M.I.D. thesis experience.

Preference is given to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

This course will acclimate new graduate students to the shop environment of the Industrial Design Department. The Metal, Wood and Model Shops are invaluable resources, clarifying pragmatic aspects of the design process from general feasibility of manufacturing to the challenges of translating concepts into tangible objects. This course covers excerpted information from both undergraduate courses Wood I and Metals I and emphasizes safety in the utilization of shop facilities.

Preference is given to first-year Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

This course introduces the Graduate Thesis project starting with the development of a research question through secondary research reading methods. This question has its assumptions articulated and verified through experimental making and primary research methods that engage specific audiences for qualitative discourse.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

This course introduces the Graduate Thesis project starting with the development of a research question through secondary research reading methods. This question has its assumptions articulated and verified through experimental making and primary research methods that engage specific audiences for qualitative discourse.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

Graduate Thesis Communications I is a studio course run in parallel with our sibling studio course which focuses on design research methods. Together, we will spend the fall semester casting about, planning and prototyping towards some kind of design proposal or product for execution in the spring. We think about writing in two ways. First as a design tool and second as a communication tool. On the tool for design side, we think about the many ways that writing can help clarify and quickly test out ideas. We think about writing as a form of rapid prototyping alongside sketching, model making, etc. We talk about what writing is good at, when other methods might be more useful, and when to combine methods. We use writing to help clarify and crystalize the thesis plan. On the communication side, we think about the many ways that writing surrounds a designed object (as a proposal, as sales copy, as instructions to users, as specs for manufacture, as criticism, etc.). We think about the audiences for those various kinds of writing and how to think about what they want and need. We talk about the thesis as a tool for explaining the design but also as a tool for helping you advance your career goals. At the end of the course, you will have a partially complete draft of your thesis. which will set you up for an excellent spring.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

Graduate Thesis Communications I is a studio course run in parallel with our sibling studio course which focuses on design research methods. Together, we will spend the fall semester casting about, planning and prototyping towards some kind of design proposal or product for execution in the spring. We think about writing in two ways. First as a design tool and second as a communication tool. On the tool for design side, we think about the many ways that writing can help clarify and quickly test out ideas. We think about writing as a form of rapid prototyping alongside sketching, model making, etc. We talk about what writing is good at, when other methods might be more useful, and when to combine methods. We use writing to help clarify and crystalize the thesis plan. On the communication side, we think about the many ways that writing surrounds a designed object (as a proposal, as sales copy, as instructions to users, as specs for manufacture, as criticism, etc.). We think about the audiences for those various kinds of writing and how to think about what they want and need. We talk about the thesis as a tool for explaining the design but also as a tool for helping you advance your career goals. At the end of the course, you will have a partially complete draft of your thesis. which will set you up for an excellent spring.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

The first core studio in the program is centered on an investigation of the mechanics of articulating meaning in an image. Through a variety of projects, students will investigate the efficacy of various strategies in traditional and new media, and engage in perceptual experiments in order to study the intersection of art and visual psychology.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $25.00 - $150.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

This seminar addresses key critical theory and socio-political aspects of illustration practices from a historical perspective. Reading, discussion, and meaningful integration of ideas into studio writing and activity are goals of the course. Class will meet two times per week including supported research times in various special collections and the library. Faculty determine the content of the seminar each term, balancing attention to issues defined by the expertise and interests of the graduate cohort and subjects of relevance to the field and professional practice. Theorists of special concern to contemporary illustration practice will be highlighted; statistics and technical information about communication media will illuminate how art objects have circulated in their own eras. Critical reading, writing, and presentation will be assessed.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $75.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

This studio elective - open to all RISD graduate students regardless of departmental affiliation-will address rotating topics and modes of making, thinking and discourse every semester. The structure and content of this course is designed to shift, enabling different topical investigations and a variety of expert faculty teaching special content in fall and spring of each year. This enables the flexibility for studio consideration of an ever-changing range of both topics and studio engagement. This course may be repeated for elective credit with permission of a student's graduate program director (GPD).

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $150.00

Elective

This course is predicated on deep student focus on social engagement and the societal benefits attached to their studio work. Students will investigate and critique methodologies of contemporary, socially engaged artists to develop their own progressive work in order to question and shift traditionally narrow and restrictive paradigms in Illustration that preference and reward the hegemonic at the expense of the progressive, dissident, and critical work needed to advocate for the historically underrepresented. Collaborative projects with local artists, individuals and community organizations will be encouraged and supported to directly connect students with local communities. Students will be required to present self-driven work periodically in response to selected topics, readings, and community discussion.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $150.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

This course emphasizes the mining and contextualization of one's own work as a nexus for growth through the active, ongoing and evolving consideration of your own studio practice as a topic of study in itself. This work will spring from and shed light on your creative intuition, processes and outcomes in a way that will helps you to communicate your work to others through language. In turn, it is hoped this voicing of essential components of your work will help streamline your practice and expedite your artistic production.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $25.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

The course focuses on understanding the origin of museums and recognizing the influence that certain dominant design aesthetics, approaches, and narratives had on exhibitions. The museum architectural space and its interior exhibition design are never 'neutral' and the study of its history, codification, and exploitation are essential to rebalance and subvert the structural inequalities between Trouillot's agents (museums/institution), actors (curators/exhibit designers), and subject of museum narratives (artifacts/art/belongings). Through lectures, readings, and class debate, students will be encouraged to question how aesthetics impregnate exhibition environments through materials, light, colors, forms, and meanings; to acknowledge that architecture and exhibition design aesthetics are always politicized and that in the tiniest details of their morphology and their organization, museums have the power to validate, the power to corroborate, the power to include, and the deliberate power to silence. 

Major Elective: MDes ENE

Topics in Exhibition and Narrative Environments I is the first part in a year-long exploration of a fluid field in which exhibition occurs in museums as well as other environments. This seminar offers various approaches for that exploration and will provide the student insight into different aspects of exhibition: curatorial matters, experience design, narrative creation, graphic design, new media, user participation, installation, site specificity, production, etc. The content may change from year to year to include special projects. The content may change from year to year and may include theory, hands-on installation, curatorial matters, research, design planning, materials, new technology, time based interactions, and, of course, design of the narrative environment.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Exhibition and Narrative Environments

This lecture course is designed to familiarize students with structural principles and systems as they relate to the study of interior architecture and adaptive reuse. The course will examine the performance and composition of various structural systems, including wood, lightweight metal, steel, masonry, and concrete structures. Local examples in the built environment will be explored to gain an understanding of structures, their materials and components in adaptive reuse. Course work will be complimented by visits to local examples in the built environment.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This class will introduce the fundamentals of orthographic drawing through the investigation of an existing object. Working with the object, the student will study and implement the use of plan, section, axonometric and perspective to expose the spatial qualities of the structure. Basic drawing conventions and model making techniques will be introduced. The concept of architectural scale will be explored.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This class will introduce the fundamentals of orthographic drawing through the investigation of an existing object. Working with the object, the student will study and implement the use of plan, section, axonometric and perspective to expose the spatial qualities of the structure. Basic drawing conventions and model making techniques will be introduced. The concept of architectural scale will be explored.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This class will introduce the fundamentals of orthographic drawing through the investigation of an existing object. Working with the object, the student will study and implement the use of plan, section, axonometric and perspective to expose the spatial qualities of the structure. Basic drawing conventions and model making techniques will be introduced. The concept of architectural scale will be explored.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

Using a local site in Providence, this studio will focus on the fundamentals of documenting an existing structure. These techniques will include, at a minimum, measuring, surveying, photographing, analyzing of materials and construction details, researching databases for relevant, related information and understanding the existing structural and mechanical systems. This information will be organized to create a full architectural documentation set. Documentation will also be explored in model form, building on the skills acquired in Studio Ia. Upon completion of documentation, the students will learn to analyze the existing structure both as an entity and within the adjacent urban context. The studio will also focus on the presentation of such analysis and the possible uses of it in design transformation.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

Using a local site in Providence, this studio will focus on the fundamentals of documenting an existing structure. These techniques will include, at a minimum, measuring, surveying, photographing, analyzing of materials and construction details, researching databases for relevant, related information and understanding the existing structural and mechanical systems. This information will be organized to create a full architectural documentation set. Documentation will also be explored in model form, building on the skills acquired in Studio Ia. Upon completion of documentation, the students will learn to analyze the existing structure both as an entity and within the adjacent urban context. The studio will also focus on the presentation of such analysis and the possible uses of it in design transformation.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies