Have we considered what it truly means to critique? This course explores the role of critique, dissects real-life cases and challenges existing methodologies to foster more just and equitable ways to look at design. We'll closely examine how professionals, clients, and stakeholders present and evaluate design work to critically reflect on methods within ID for ethical and inclusive practices. Engaging in workshops, role-playing, and discussions, students will reshape their understanding of design and critique, fostering decolonized, equitable, and empathetic approaches. By the conclusion of the studio students will have designed and developed tools and models for public and private critique. Students will be equipped with enriched perspectives and a comprehensive toolkit of critique and discussion methodologies that are continuously applicable in future practices.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

The ability to conceive and prepare for different future(s) is a vital human capability. Designers are frequently commissioned by multinational corporations, government agencies and cultural institutions for foresight and strategy work. But in times of uncertainty we all have to be futurists. This special topic studio will introduce students to the tools and techniques of foresight practice and discursive design. We will also examine afro-futurism, decolonised futures and participatory design to see how these practices are being used by communities and cultures rarely supported in futures practices. Students will finish the semester with designed objects and written products that support more resilient futures thinking.

If you have questions about the studio please do not hesitate to contact Charlie Cannon via email. cccannon@risd.edu.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Modern surroundings embody every aspect of our lived spaces, from the material surroundings of the clothes we wear, the objects that we cherish to the immaterial surroundings of networked mediated spaces (eg. Zoom, IG, AltspaceVR). The drive to simulate physical reality has led to more intuitive computational environments that more closely resemble the experience of the world around us yet is counterbalanced by the recognition of unpleasant effects of digital technologies such as anxiety and fatigue and the need for environments supportive of physical and mental health.  This course offers students an opportunity to learn CLO3D, an apparel and soft goods simulation software, in concert with other 3D capture and modeling tools, to explore the possibilities for the design of sensory surroundings, both material and immaterial. Readings and presentations on visual haptics, somatic therapy and neuroaesthetics will provide a theoretical framework to ground these material explorations. Textile skills (eg. sewing, knitting, embroidery), while not required, will probably lead to more meaningful explorations.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course is intended to introduce basic sewing skills and soft goods construction techniques in bag making and soft product design. Students will learn how to operate standard industrial sewing machines and create three-dimensional products from flat patterns. Fabric and notion selection for product performance will be taught as students learn to prototype and create final models of bags and soft products. Access to a portable sewing machine is suggested, as the eight industrial machines will be shared. You will be given some basic sewing supplies but can purchase additional materials based on your preferences.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Building off Metals I, this course equips industrial designers with essential metalworking skills to fabricate prototypes, simple tools, and functional hardware components. Techniques taught are designed to be useful both in a full metalworking studio and in a smaller more sparsely equipped studio. We will be working with brass, steel, and tool steel for each student to fabricate their own metal-marking scribe, an adjustable-angle pocket bevel, and a functional hardware component of their own design.

Through step-by-step instruction, we will understand the working characteristics of metals, mastering layout and marking techniques, and executing fundamental fabrication processes—including cutting, drilling, filing, sanding, silver brazing, and heat treating. 

Participants will gain confidence using a range of tools, from hand tools like hammers and files to shop equipment such as drill presses, band saws, stationary sanders, and oxy-acetylene torches.
By the end of the course, students will have not only refined their metalworking skills but also developed a deeper understanding of material properties, craftsmanship, and the integration of metal components into their design work.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Emergent Forms is a studio that invites students to explore form through a hands-on, material-driven design process. Working with a range of materials—each with its own structure, resistance, and expressive potential—students create prototypes as tools for thinking, testing, and discovery. The course encourages close observation of how forms evolve in nature—through movement, tension, repetition, and structure—and how those principles can inform human-made design. Through iterative making, students develop an understanding of space, proportion, and meaning, while also learning to understand themselves through design, reflect on their process, and communicate ideas with intention. Projects may range from tabletop objects to small furniture, giving students opportunities to work across scales while developing a personal design language—one that grows from curiosity, material sensitivity, and the intelligence of making.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

In a time of unprecedented biodiversity loss and ecological change, this studio course will challenge students to rethink traditional human-centered design approaches and imagine a world where designers can actively contribute to the protection and survival of the flora and fauna around us. As a result of human activity, it is estimated that one in four species are at risk of extinction – but is it possible that we can halt these losses through creative design solutions?

Together, we will envision a more symbiotic relationship between humans and nature. We will investigate already existing interventions for threatened species and better understand how designers are tackling these challenging issues. We will study critical topics such as habitat loss, decline of bird and pollinator populations, and shed light on often-overlooked animals that play significant roles in our ecosystems. Through observation, research, and insights from guest speakers and field trips, students will begin to develop and prototype their own design projects that may include the creation of analogous habitats in urban environments, pollinator-friendly support systems, or protective interventions that allow for coexistence between humans and animals. Completed projects will reimagine what design can do in a more-than-human world!
 

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

In many ways, biodesign introduces a fresh paradigm for our era. It’s design with/for biology! As such, biodesign promotes new forms of collaboration with living organisms, whether they are naturally evolved or lab-synthesized. Biodesign de-centers the dominant, yet limited, focus on humans that human-centered design championed at the turn of the century. It also eschews biomimicry, as it does not expect organisms to teach us or provide us with learning opportunities, nor serve us as merely models for emulation. Instead, its design tenets are biological principles that are observable in nature. Things grow and evolve, and are interdependent, so the products of biodesign are not thought of as ends in themselves. They’re part of a broader system or ecology that design aims to complement, or even enhance. As a result, biodesign projects are inherently complex, requiring multidisciplinary collaboration amongst specialists and generalists, including designers. This semester, we will explore biodesign across various scales, from molecules and materials to products and environments, while engaging with key pioneers in the field. No scientific background is required to succeed in this class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Students learn to explore form with low fidelity hand sketching and high fidelity thinking. Hand sketching processes students learn provide a vehicle to explore different opportunities for forms, shapes, and structural systems. This drawing process helps narrow down and evolve the best ideas and form choices for a design need. After learning this drawing process, it improves a person’s ability to sketch by hand. Even for people that think they do not have the natural talent to hand sketch will gain confidence when learning this process. 

As far as design workflow, this drawing process is often beneficial before building ideas to CAD or other high fidelity design tools. Successful CAD work often starts with first having reference hand sketches that clearly define the structural systems, forms and proportions of an idea. Form is not an endless spectrum, when making decisions and developing ideas these hand sketching methodologies help people to explore form options in an organized and scientific manner. This type of drawing starts as a concept in the brain, and often the new object is not fully seen until it is drawn first, hence “draw and see”. Throughout the semester students use this process to generate ideas around self-selected product categories.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Graduate Communication Introduction is a studio course about writing and speaking as design tools. We think about writing and speaking in two ways. First as a communication tool and second as a design tool. On the communication side, we address the many ways that writing and speaking 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 communication and how to think about what they want and need. We look at examples of great design communication and we develop and practice our own skills for succinctly explaining our ideas. On the design tool 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 explore techniques such as design fiction, scenario planning, and other narrative methodologies that are used in industrial design and related fields.

Enrollment is limited 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

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 gives the student a hands-on opportunity to develop design skills through the interaction with industrial materials that have strictly defined properties. Experimenting with these materials and the processes by which they are manipulated and formed promotes innovative thinking, problem solving and idea development. Students will achieve a more precise, professional and sensitive approach to design while broadening their technical skill base.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course gives the student a hands-on opportunity to develop design skills through the interaction with industrial materials that have strictly defined properties. Experimenting with these materials and the processes by which they are manipulated and formed promotes innovative thinking, problem solving and idea development. Students will achieve a more precise, professional and sensitive approach to design while broadening their technical skill base.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course gives the student a hands-on opportunity to develop design skills through the interaction with industrial materials that have strictly defined properties. Experimenting with these materials and the processes by which they are manipulated and formed promotes innovative thinking, problem solving and idea development. Students will achieve a more precise, professional and sensitive approach to design while broadening their technical skill base.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

The objective of this course is to develop a more precise, professional and sensitive approach to design while broadening the student's technical base. Precision machine tools such as metal lathes, millers and grinders will be introduced. Logical design and set-up approaches will be discussed. Outside design work will be required with emphasis on engineering drawing and sequence of operations. There will be a strong emphasis on experimenting with the material in order to promote innovative thinking and problem solving.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Junior and Senior Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

The objective of this course is to develop a more precise, professional and sensitive approach to design while broadening the student's technical base. Precision machine tools such as metal lathes, millers and grinders will be introduced. Logical design and set-up approaches will be discussed. Outside design work will be required with emphasis on engineering drawing and sequence of operations. There will be a strong emphasis on experimenting with the material in order to promote innovative thinking and problem solving.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Junior and Senior Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course will deal with advanced woodworking processes, including milling and machinery use, laminate and steam bending, plywood and veneer. Techniques in using natural and synthetic materials connected with furniture will be covered.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Junior and Senior Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course will deal with advanced woodworking processes, including milling and machinery use, laminate and steam bending, plywood and veneer. Techniques in using natural and synthetic materials connected with furniture will be covered.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Junior and Senior Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course will deal with advanced woodworking processes, including milling and machinery use, laminate and steam bending, plywood and veneer. Techniques in using natural and synthetic materials connected with furniture will be covered.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Junior and Senior Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design