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

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 will need to purchase
additional materials based on your class projects.

Elective

This design seminar provides strategies for advanced research, frameworks for experimental practice in design, and prepares students for pursuing individual projects such as a thesis and deals with a range of scales and contexts through a series of structured experiments and collective engagements in design.

Experimental design practices; refers to design as a situation that deliberately sits at the edge of discipline. This studio/seminar class encourages students to explore diverse contexts and issues through projects and texts that consider the impact of design with new technologies, material exploration and ecologies, economic systems, culture and society. We will explore design as a means to understand and engage with social order, to adopt an open investigative approach to questioning cultural products and practices and how they affect and enforce the perspectives; values, ideas and beliefs that underpin contemporary society in an expanded exploration of contemporary design and its literacy.

What opportunities can free thinking design practitioners uncover through direct exploration of the complexity of design’s role in developing political, cultural, economic systems and social structures as products? Within this class we will reassess the discipline, and reconsider the practice of design, free from the marketplace, but not exclusionary. Allowing an autonomous position to question and challenge a broad range of cultural phenomena, patterns of social interaction and the behaviors in which they are used.

This class will work across both conceptual and material experiments; from tangible objects and interfaces to intangible material processes such as the use of AI as a material exploration. The class will be taught through a series of technical demonstrations, workshops, project briefs, visiting guest speakers and external critiques. The outcome of which will be a series of products / tools / interactions that seek to question social, economic and political order of not only how things are made, but in what context, why and for whom.

Elective

This 3-credit class is an introduction to computer-controlled machining. You will learn each aspect of the model-to-machine workflow and at the end of the course be able to design for CNC machining, and operate and mill parts using the CNC machines in the ID Metal Shop. Time spent in class will be technical and process oriented, focusing on proper machine setup, operation, and troubleshooting of toolpaths created in CAM software.

Initial assignments will focus on the use of the built-in facing wizards, engraving metal, and using CAM software to create GCODE files for both 2D and 3D parts. Later course assignments will transition to being projects of your own design. We will be learning in the context of machining metals, but working with other mediums like plastics, wood, and waxes will be possible for individual projects. You will need to draw on some basic CAD knowledge and some machining skills; specifically the interpretation of control drawings, and the selection of appropriate tooling and workholding techniques.

ID 2452 - Metals II is a prerequisite/corequisite for this class.

Elective

This 3-credit elective course, offered by the Industrial Design department, focuses on foundational 2D and 3D milling techniques using the Camaster Panther 4x4 CNC router table. The course is open to students from any department, who meet the course prerequisites/co-requisites , or equivalent, as determined by the instructor.

Students engage in hands-on assignments that progressively build their skills throughout the course. These include designing and producing a flat pack stool using 2D profiling, creating 2.5D models for mold-making applications, executing a multisided operation assignment for a full 3D object, and culminating in a final portfolio piece that demonstrates individual creativity and proficiency in CNC machining.

The course's learning outcomes include mastering an understanding of machining principles, utilizing CAD and CAM software, and Designing within the limitations of machinery. The course aims to equip students with practical skills and knowledge essential for utilizing CNC machining tools in diverse design applications. The course's process-oriented approach ensures students acquire skills beyond just design mastery, seamlessly aligning with real-world CNC workflows. This holistic perspective prepares them for professional design and fabrication.

Note: ID 2453-XX Wood II is a pre or corequisite for this class.

Elective

This class provides new and current Ceramics, Glass, Jewelry + Metalsmithing students with a comprehensive safety orientation for future use of the wood facility in the Fine Arts Division. Instructor will orient students in the safe operation of stationary machines in the wood facility, including the miter saw, band saw, table saw, disc sander, drum sander, drill press, and panel saw. Instruction will also be provided for different ways of building and joining with wood through the use of hand tools and stationary machines. Passing this course is required in order to use all machines in the Fine Arts wood facility.

Elective

This class provides new and current Ceramics, Glass, Jewelry + Metalsmithing students with a comprehensive safety orientation for future use of the wood facility in the Fine Arts Division. Instructor will orient students in the safe operation of stationary machines in the wood facility, including the miter saw, band saw, table saw, disc sander, drum sander, drill press, and panel saw. Instruction will also be provided for different ways of building and joining with wood through the use of hand tools and stationary machines. Passing this course is required in order to use all machines in the Fine Arts wood facility.

Elective

This class provides new and current Ceramics, Glass, Jewelry + Metalsmithing students with a comprehensive safety orientation for future use of the wood facility in the Fine Arts Division. Instructor will orient students in the safe operation of stationary machines in the wood facility, including the miter saw, band saw, table saw, disc sander, drum sander, drill press, and panel saw. Instruction will also be provided for different ways of building and joining with wood through the use of hand tools and stationary machines. Passing this course is required in order to use all machines in the Fine Arts wood facility.

Elective

The material qualities of textile design and fabrication refer to our relationship to all aspects of the physical and tangible world. While computation has long been responsible for pushing the traditional techniques of textiles to high levels of mechanical industrial expression, digital sensibility and know-how of digital technologies are now increasingly seen as means to push the frontier and very definition of fabric. Parallel advances in digital fabrication and the invention of smart materials now allow for added dimensionality and functionality in fabric, and computation is a key interface for material exploration. In this course, students will learn to modulate the performance and behavior of fabric through its geometry and other systems of continuous structural surface within a computational framework. This course will provide students with the opportunity to push the boundaries of fabric design across disciplines and studio practices.

Estimated Cost of Materials: Varies by project.

Please contact the department for permission to register. 

Elective

Turning an idea into a sustainable reality requires a fundamental understanding of business, but the frameworks that guide business principles overlap, complement, and enhance design principles. This course seeks to educate students to understand business as a critical design factor- a defining constraint or liberating perspective along the same lines that other design principles are taught. The guiding principle is that design and business are inextricably linked: Design work is intrinsically linked to business and will always be at the service of business, fulfilling the need for an enterprise (profit or non-profit) whose business model is critical to its survival. Design will find new channels, new outlets, through a more complete understanding of business needs and how businesses see opportunity. Design can and should be considered as critical strategic input for business. The objective of Business Principles: Design and Entrepreneurship is for students to understand basic business vocabulary, to explore how design vocabulary and design processes overlap, complement and enhance business vocabulary, and to understand how design thinking skills can be used to identify and execute business opportunities.

Elective

In the NCSS Core Seminar, students explore key issues in nature-culture-sustainability studies, developing an interdisciplinary understanding of the need for integrative approaches to issues including mobility and infrastructure, environmental justice and equity, sustainable food and water systems and the very real present and future of climate change. Beginning with definitions of nature and natural systems, drawn from environmental literature and history, we will dig into questions of what we mean by "culture" and "sustainability". The vitality of the ecologic and social and built environment upon which we all depend will form the core of our investigations. How and where we live matters; in the present Anthropocene, questions of resiliency and adaptation take on ever greater urgency. We will study contemporary conditions with examples from across the globe, with an eye to understanding how innovation and creative practices in art and design impact future planetary health. This course lays the foundation for students pursuing the NCSS concentration. The seminar will include lectures and discussions of readings and case studies. Occasional guests will include scientists, designers and others engaged at the forefront of environmental activism and research. Students may ground their final course project in a topic connected to their own work, relating it to their major or another concentration, in addition to NCSS.

Open to Sophomore, Junior and Seniors

Elective

In the NCSS Core Seminar, students explore key issues in nature-culture-sustainability studies, developing an interdisciplinary understanding of the need for integrative approaches to issues including mobility and infrastructure, environmental justice and equity, sustainable food and water systems and the very real present and future of climate change. Beginning with definitions of nature and natural systems, drawn from environmental literature and history, we will dig into questions of what we mean by "culture" and "sustainability". The vitality of the ecologic and social and built environment upon which we all depend will form the core of our investigations. How and where we live matters; in the present Anthropocene, questions of resiliency and adaptation take on ever greater urgency. We will study contemporary conditions with examples from across the globe, with an eye to understanding how innovation and creative practices in art and design impact future planetary health. This course lays the foundation for students pursuing the NCSS concentration. The seminar will include lectures and discussions of readings and case studies. Occasional guests will include scientists, designers and others engaged at the forefront of environmental activism and research. Students may ground their final course project in a topic connected to their own work, relating it to their major or another concentration, in addition to NCSS.

Elective

In the NCSS Core Seminar, students explore key issues in nature-culture-sustainability studies, developing an interdisciplinary understanding of the need for integrative approaches to issues including mobility and infrastructure, environmental justice and equity, sustainable food and water systems and the very real present and future of climate change. Beginning with definitions of nature and natural systems, drawn from environmental literature and history, we will dig into questions of what we mean by "culture" and "sustainability". The vitality of the ecologic and social and built environment upon which we all depend will form the core of our investigations. How and where we live matters; in the present Anthropocene, questions of resiliency and adaptation take on ever greater urgency. We will study contemporary conditions with examples from across the globe, with an eye to understanding how innovation and creative practices in art and design impact future planetary health. This course lays the foundation for students pursuing the NCSS concentration. The seminar will include lectures and discussions of readings and case studies. Occasional guests will include scientists, designers and others engaged at the forefront of environmental activism and research. Students may ground their final course project in a topic connected to their own work, relating it to their major or another concentration, in addition to NCSS.

Open to Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Graduate Students.

Elective

In this course, we will make solo and collaborative performance works. We will approach performance as the project of creating new contexts for interrelation–between beings, material, matter, the known, and the unknown–that allow both the performer and the viewer to learn and/or experience something we otherwise would not have access to. In other words, the work of this class is the work of listening in the direction of something you can’t quite yet hear, and taking the time to figure out: where you might stand, what device you might invent, what you might wear, and how you might work with the resonance of the room, to get closer to hearing it. We will turn towards the body as intelligent in its own right and build personal movement practices that steer our making. We will then turn to the generation of sculpture, video, sound, and texts that scaffold, augment, reverberate, and challenge that physical action. 

Course material will draw from contemporary dance practices, somatics, embodied cognition, and queer theory, among other sources. We will practice expanding our attention beyond the boundaries of the art object to include the processes of production, reception, effort, transmission, collaboration, interdependence, decay and forgetting that locate art in time, space, and community. No prior movement experience necessary.

Elective

This is a project based course connected to artist Liz Collins’ upcoming mid-career retrospective exhibition at the RISD Museum, opening July 2025, and is designed to engage students in the creation and curation of a gallery space within the show. Liz Collins: Motherlode is a multifaceted show spanning 30+ years of Collins’ career in fashion, textile design, performance, installation and visual art, and will include a gallery devoted to this project and intended to be a queer social space. The space will be transformed through Liz Collins’ design elements such as wallpaper, furniture, rugs, and will hold a robust curation of queer art and artists from the RISD museum collection and from the RISD community, with exact parameters to be determined by the class in collaboration with museum staff.

The class is open to students in all departments. Students with a special interest in one or more of the following are best suited for this course: curation, interior architecture, immersive installation, artistic collaboration, queer studies. Students will work directly with Collins each week and with curators and staff from the museum to develop a clear vision and plan for this gallery.

Students wishing to be considered for this class must email apoterac@risd.edu with the following:  

Email Subject: Queer People/Places/Things

1) Statement of interest

2) Relevant experience

Elective

In this collaborative studio between furniture design and architecture, students will create furnishings that respond to and engage with a particular, culturally significant setting: the architecture of Louis Kahn. Louis Kahn is considered to be one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, known for a unique vision of Modernism — monumentality with material austerity. Students will study the life and works of Kahn, which included both architecture and furniture. The class will visit nearby significant Kahn projects, which may include the Yale Art Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Phillips Exeter Academy Library. A regional Kahn building will be selected as the architectural context for students to respond to. Although the emphasis of the class will be on designing and making furniture, it will operate as an interdisciplinary collaboration between furniture design and architecture students, with each discipline contributing its distinct expertise, skills, techniques, and knowledge. The studio is offered in partnership with Form Portfolios, a local design business that works with the estates of renowned designers, including Louis Kahn, to steward their legacies. Representatives from Form Portfolios will contribute their knowledge and expertise of Kahn specifically, and the design industry more generally, in supporting the development of student projects.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Elective

Since the 1960’s, social justice poster art has been at the heartbeat of contemporary social movements. Social justice posters champion the demands of everyday people, resist the status quo, and activate social and cultural change. This medium asks illustrators to study people’s history, examine their positionality in the present, and engage with possible futures.

Students will learn about the history of social justice poster art through lectures and a visit to RISD and Brown’s protest poster collections. In-class demonstrations, activities, discussions, and assignments will culminate in the creation of two large poster illustrations: one on historical movements and another reflecting current events.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

Folktales are stories originating in popular culture, often passed down through word of mouth and pictures. This course will explore a range of methods and approaches to illustrating traditional and contemporary folktales. We will explore how the narrative’s meaning shifts or is created through the illustrator’s visual choices. Students are encouraged to bring their own personalities and stories to their projects and to experiment with the materials they prefer. We will look at various illustrated folktales in each class to widen our understanding of the visual folktale in both a historical and present-day context.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $20.00 - $60.00

Elective

With the wave of new technology, it's convenient to investigate data online and from secondary sources rather than direct observation or experiencing objects in our surroundings, museums, or archives. This course will teach profound skills to use material cultures such as everyday objects, personal collections, artifacts, and written records as a learning tool. Through a variety of projects, students will discover how material culture can serve as both inspiration for narrative and a medium for artistic expression. Students will develop skills to interpret and analyze objects, unravel the stories they hold, and subsequently, narrate those stories using their preferred artistic mediums. The course will encompass a broad range of subjects, including objects' cultural significance and symbolism, hands-on experience, multi-sensory engagement, and interdisciplinary insights. The class will visit the RISD Museum and Special Collections. Each class is structured into distinct segments, starting with the exploration of object narratives and concluding with the acquisition of new art-making techniques. Each week, students are required to participate in art-making projects and submit analyses of objects. There will be seven assignments including two small written narratives of objects; and a final project that will result in a larger visual narrative inspired by material culture.  

Elective