This seminar will bridge the foundations of landscape theory, research, and design methods in order to frame a process for students to examine contemporary issues in landscape architecture and define research questions that would contribute to creating new knowledge in the field. The course will include guest lectures from practitioners creating a body of research in the field. This seminar initiates the thesis process by asking students to formulate their own proposals for research through design.

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

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

This seminar will bridge the foundations of landscape theory, research, and design methods in order to frame a process for students to examine contemporary issues in landscape architecture and define research questions that would contribute to creating new knowledge in the field. The course will include guest lectures from practitioners creating a body of research in the field. This seminar initiates the thesis process by asking students to formulate their own proposals for research through design.

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

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

This course serves as an introductory exploration into enduring legacies, cultural evolution, and critical analysis of the moving image, encompassing film, animation, and video. With an emphasis on interrogating prevailing forces, structures, and terminology historically associated with these forms, the course aims to question and deconstruct prevailing modes of thinking and making in the medium. It also fosters a space for new perspectives, counter-histories, narratives, and abstractions to emerge in the context of cinema, the moving image, and time-based media.

The course does not merely focus on formal aspects; instead, it delves into a comprehensive examination, analysis, and questioning of how the formal elements and conventions in film actively shape both the functionality of the films themselves and the themes they depict. Questions before each screening prompt active viewing and discussion.

With a significant emphasis on the intersections between cinema and contemporary art practices, we will screen films representing different styles and periods of filmmaking, video art, and animation. Students will develop a shared language by learning the meaning and appropriate usage of common film terms, as well as considering the histories and values that gave rise to them.

Through screenings, lectures, visiting artist presentations, discussions, readings, and assignments, students will expand and deepen their understanding of 'cinema' and the moving image, develop conceptual tools for analyzing time-based imagery and sound, and begin to create direct links between film history and analysis and their studio practices.

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video

This course is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 is an introduction to conceptual and manual skills that represent necessary steps in design evolution. Students strengthen skills by completion of several processes and exercises. Critical thinking and concept generation is a primary focus, drawing and model making activities help to establish this process. Throughout the course each student will focus on improving communication skills and the ability to project or sell ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00

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 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

In this studio course, second-year students identify and pursue personally driven research. Weekly individual meetings and studio visits take place with the instructor, and also with scheduled first-year and second-year group critiques. Students are required to maintain a continuous record of their research and development through drawings, writings, samples, models, etc. Active participation in group discussions and critiques is mandatory.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department; registration is not available in Workday. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

Oil painting is one of the richest, most powerfully expressive mediums that exist. It offers a vast diversity of approaches and provides the most flexibility of all the painting materials. To take advantage of that variety, certain technical knowledge is essential. This class is geared as a thorough introduction to the newer oil painter. Our early class focus will be on understanding materials through a variety of life study exercises. Focus on color and composition will promote effectively orchestrated images. Our ultimate goal will be to make powerful images that marry appropriate approaches to oil painting with personal vision. The class emphasis will balance the technical mastery of materials with the clarity of effective visual communication.

Elective

From its humble origins in LiveJournal and the woman-rating origins of Facebook, social media has come a long way to reach its current iterations. This course will look at the emergence and development of social media platforms, asking how we construct ourselves online and how being online constructs us. Paying particular attention to race, class, gender, and sexuality, we’ll examine issues such as how attention has become a commodity, the politics of emotion and The Algorithm™, and the benefits and limits of online activism. You’ll never look at your FYP the same way again. 

Elective

This course, a major component in the student's can entail two types of activity: 1. Participation in sophomore, junior or senior level courses to strengthen technical skills and design vocabulary; Including Design for Printed Textiles and Fabric Silkscreen and 2. Individual projects undergraduate advisors to clarify personal concepts and format of the work. This semester's emphasis is on enlarging and solidifying the student's background and defining direction for the work.

Please contact the department for permission to register. This course is a requirement for Graduate Textiles Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Textiles

This class uses Adobe After Effects as a tool to achieve the students' individual goals as artists. Starting with the basics of creating imagery in After Effects, the course moves through compositing, special effects, puppet animation and time manipulation. There is an overarching focus on core concepts such as quality of motion, layout and composition, color and form that surpass this single class. The first 6 weeks contain homework assignments that allow the students to grasp individual components of this highly technical toolset, while during the second 6 weeks the students concentrate on a final project. This project stresses the students' knowledge and forces them to grow as a digital animator as they find unique problems and solve them with instructor supervision.

Elective

Philosophically, the ID Department believes that students become better designers when they have an intimate knowledge of a range of natural and synthetic materials. In this course, students will learn about the properties of natural wood and engineered wood-based materials, investigate the related technical processes, and evaluate how this information is both connected to and influenced by the design process. Students will work with materials directly and master skills needed to manipulate these materials. They will develop projects that allow them to engage in the design and development process, promote creativity, problem solving, and the correct use of materials. Facility procedures, safety, and care and use of tools and equipment will be stressed.

Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Philosophically, the ID Department believes that students become better designers when they have an intimate knowledge of a range of natural and synthetic materials. In this course, students will learn about the properties of natural wood and engineered wood-based materials, investigate the related technical processes, and evaluate how this information is both connected to and influenced by the design process. Students will work with materials directly and master skills needed to manipulate these materials. They will develop projects that allow them to engage in the design and development process, promote creativity, problem solving, and the correct use of materials. Facility procedures, safety, and care and use of tools and equipment will be stressed.

Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Philosophically, the ID Department believes that students become better designers when they have an intimate knowledge of a range of natural and synthetic materials. In this course, students will learn about the properties of natural wood and engineered wood-based materials, investigate the related technical processes, and evaluate how this information is both connected to and influenced by the design process. Students will work with materials directly and master skills needed to manipulate these materials. They will develop projects that allow them to engage in the design and development process, promote creativity, problem solving, and the correct use of materials. Facility procedures, safety, and care and use of tools and equipment will be stressed.

Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

The course incorporates both the development physical and UI/UX design elements combined. The digital transformation and the way people interact with products is currently changing the consumer product landscape and the design opportunities its use brings. During the course students develop ideas that by the end of the course will build high-fidelity prototypes. Some knowledge of 3D modeling software and or UI/UX design software such as Figma or Adobe XD allows students to focus their time on the design subjects they are researching and developing for the course. 3D printing and UI/UX simulations will be iteratively evolved throughout the semester to final prototypes.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design, MID (2.5yr): Industrial Design