Thousands of years ago, in the highlands of Peru, indigenous farmers developed an amazing plant that provided high protein yet needed very little energy to cook – it was the nuña, a bean that pops like popcorn! Now, thousands of years later, those same qualities could provide global environmental and health benefits, both reducing our fossil fuel use and our consumption of animal protein. But how can we encourage people to eat these amazing little beans?

In this studio, we will explore that very question, using human-centered design research and iterative experimentation to respectfully build on this ancient indigenous technology. Part foodways research, part food design, we will examine the challenge from top to bottom using seeds developed by the USDA to grow in non-equatorial climates. We will do everything from experimenting with how to prepare the beans to designing research-based deployment strategies and packaging, using design to help lower the barriers to environmentally-sound healthy nutrition.

If you love hands-on experimentation, are interested in design for social good and want to learn more about qualitative design research, this is the course for you!

This studio is a Reassembling Industrial Design (REID) Special Topic Studio, which meets the graduation requirement for an SEI tagged class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This course is a study of the theories and methods of character design as applied to narrative forms. This class asks students to push beyond stereotypical designs to develop two-dimensional characters that are both personally and culturally resonant and imaginative. Particular emphasis is placed on the expressive power of abstract forms and color. Through exploring individual perceptions of good and evil, success and failure, as well as beauty and ugliness, students create characters that are highly original. Research, thorough craftsmanship, and sophisticated design are stressed.

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

Elective

Transparent Matter is a hands-on studio focused on materials and processes that engage states of transparency and light. Specifically, this course invites students to engage in experiments that combine glass, light, kinetic movement and physical/virtual space. Collaborative work practices, material agency, video sketch-booking and time-based thinking (often catalyzed through a transparent medium) will inform explorations into optical phenomenon.

The class will approach the hot shop as a location that will promote new studio processes and generate interdisciplinary thinking and making. Relationships between physical material and philosophical approach will be explored through handling glass, light, optics, lenses, and projectors. Through guided studio practice, readings, research, lectures, screenings, demos, and discussions, students will learn conceptual, technical, and performative principles. Lectures based on the use of transparency in contemporary art will contextualize various ways material and metaphor inform one another.

Estimated Materials Cost: $100.00

The course is open to Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Fifth-year Undergraduates from all disciplines across RISD. There are no pre-requisite courses required.

Elective

Manga, a term that represents a style and tradition of comics and cartooning developed in Japan during the late 19th century, has grown in global popularity over the last few decades. As the artform continues to raise its profile and influence across popular culture—including comics, animation, film, and the academic study of art—many illustrators and scholars are becoming increasingly interested in learning the craft and exploring the unique qualities of manga. What better way to experience the culture of manga and its many intricacies than by traveling to its birthplace, Japan, and studying at an institution that specializes in teaching the artform?

This course will take place in the heart of the manga and anime industry, Tokyo, in collaboration with industry professionals and HAL: College of Technology and Design, a leading arts institution with a comprehensive Manga, Anime, and Illustration undergraduate and graduate program. The program will be led by a team of industry professionals spanning various disciplines related to manga and anime, including graphic novelist Cat Huang (Critic, Illustration).

Participants will engage in a three-week intensive cultural exchange, working alongside student peers at HAL, learning traditional Japanese illustration techniques, researching the wide range of manga genres, and meeting with leading professionals from Japan’s publishing industry. Visits to museums, historical landmarks, and site-scouting locations will provide additional cultural context, and deepen students’ appreciation of the influences that shape manga.

Students will create a four-page doujinshi, or independent comic, as part of an anthology of short stories collaboratively produced by students from RISD and HAL, to be published at a later date. In addition to group critiques, participants will receive feedback from RISD and faculty, as well as invited professionals from the local publishing community.

Registration is not available in Workday. Students must complete an application through RISD Global Summer Studies. A minimum GPA of 2.5 is required for all RISD students. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Additional information including deadlines and travel costs can be found on the Global Summer Studies website.

This is a hands-on, project-based introduction to computers and digital multimedia for artists. The course is designed to be an ongoing discussion on art, design and personal work informed by digital images, sound, video, animation, interactive multimedia, and the Internet.

Elective

Sculptural Practices I will take students through three major practices that are essential to the study of Sculpture -- metal fabrication, woodworking and photography/videography. This course is designed to work in tandem with ‘Sophomore Sculpture Studio’ and ‘Sophomore Seminar’. Each section will serve as an introduction to the fundamental ideas within each practice, including artist references, relevant material resources, vocabulary, tools/equipment, and general safety protocol. Students are expected to investigate each skill-set by way of experimentation and research, extending their practice beyond scheduled class time in order to develop familiarity with the processes taught in class. Students can expect to learn proficiency in these skills as well as gain a deeper understanding of the contents of the Sculpture toolkit. They will be encouraged to revisit these processes and tools over and over again throughout their own development. Additionally, they can expand their knowledge through focused studio electives offered in Spring of Sophomore year and in their Junior and Senior years.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

Sculptural Practices I will take students through three major practices that are essential to the study of Sculpture -- metal fabrication, woodworking and photography/videography. This course is designed to work in tandem with ‘Sophomore Sculpture Studio’ and ‘Sophomore Seminar’. Each section will serve as an introduction to the fundamental ideas within each practice, including artist references, relevant material resources, vocabulary, tools/equipment, and general safety protocol. Students are expected to investigate each skill-set by way of experimentation and research, extending their practice beyond scheduled class time in order to develop familiarity with the processes taught in class. Students can expect to learn proficiency in these skills as well as gain a deeper understanding of the contents of the Sculpture toolkit. They will be encouraged to revisit these processes and tools over and over again throughout their own development. Additionally, they can expand their knowledge through focused studio electives offered in Spring of Sophomore year and in their Junior and Senior years.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

Students in this course become engaged with sound as a partner in the language of time-based media. Through selected screenings, readings, and concept-driven design projects, the students develop ideas they can use as design principles in planning and working with sound. In addition, students get a hands-on overview of working with sound in a contemporary production environment, focusing on microphones, field recorders, and DAW software. Students learn to be better listeners and to be aware of how sound affects their perception of the world around them, as well as becoming technically competent to execute their creative ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

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

Elective

Color key artists must have the ability to take an audience on a thrilling roller coaster ride that they came for. This course is for artists interested in the intersection between story and color for cinema. The most critical skill a color key artist needs is taking a story and quickly roughing out emotional story beats. Students will explore the fundamentals of color and light and how they are used in filmmaking to tell a compelling narrative. Assignments will address visual storytelling principles to craft colorscripts, color keys, and emotional story beat paintings, all of which are needed in a 2D or 3D animation production. The class will go through the processes of using color theory and lighting techniques to create powerful and emotional statements for film. Though this course is focused on animation, these lessons can apply for any story-driven project including live-action, video games, children's books, graphic novels, etc.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $50.00

Elective

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of motion graphics, as well as the implementation of video, and sound design. Students will learn a variety of motion graphics software, such as Adobe After Effects and Premier, as well as studio tools like Ableton Live, and/or other audio-visual programs. Students will learn how to capture, manipulate, mix and optimize audio visual material for final production and implementation. Through a series of in-class and multi-week assignments, students will create animated projects that include motion design real-world assignments, as well as experimental exercises, with the goal of exploring intersections between graphic design, story telling, visual composition, and the realms of rhythm and sound. Adobe After Effects will be the primary production tool for this class. Each student will propose a long term project, this project will be developed throughout the semester and presented as the final project for the class. In addition to our software tutorials, there will be a series of short weekly lectures to review specific histories, and also current practitioners who are using motion graphics and sound to create works in the worlds of design, fine art, and performance.

Elective

This class is designed to train students in the art of creature creation/design. Students will study animal anatomy and physiology with a focus on adaptions to meet specific environments. Following a structured process to design beasts for a variety of genres, the class will explore the genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror. Also featured will be class discussion regarding the psychological implications of different aesthetic choices using existing creatures from film and literature as case studies.

Elective

A one month basic introduction to Maya for 3D image-making. The class will introduce polygonal modeling, UV-mapping and normal-map generation, texturing, lighting, and advanced shader options, the Mental Ray renderer, and some particle, fluid and atmospheric simulators. Animation will not be taught beyond basics required for particle and other effects.

Students must register for workshops during the registration period and add/drop regardless of start date of class.

Elective

This seminar/studio course is centered around a series of invited artists, writers, scientists who work at the intersection of diverse identities and lived experiences to model their specific perspectives on making as a counterpoint to historically euro-centric and monolithic approaches that have burdened glass as a creative medium. Readings, discussions and class activities prioritize issues of identity, culture, gender, race, colonialism - questioning past cannons of making and proposing challenging alternatives. The participatory and collaborative work done for this class is fundamental to our thinking and making community; a willingness to share ideas and make earnest attempts to connect and support one another is central. Our lecturers and HotNights participants set a broad and challenging spectrum of topics which are built on by the research and perspectives of everyone in the class. In each case, we will strive to address topics, discussions and shop time problem solving in a manner that is respectful to all individuals.

Junior Glass Students register for GLASS-4316 (Fall) and GLASS-4318 (Spring).

Senior Glass Students register for GLASS-4320 (Fall) and GLASS-4322 (Spring).

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This seminar/studio course is centered around a series of invited artists, writers, scientists who work at the intersection of diverse identities and lived experiences to model their specific perspectives on making as a counterpoint to historically euro-centric and monolithic approaches that have burdened glass as a creative medium. Readings, discussions and class activities prioritize issues of identity, culture, gender, race, colonialism - questioning past cannons of making and proposing challenging alternatives. The participatory and collaborative work done for this class is fundamental to our thinking and making community; a willingness to share ideas and make earnest attempts to connect and support one another is central. Our lecturers and HotNights participants set a broad and challenging spectrum of topics which are built on by the research and perspectives of everyone in the class. In each case, we will strive to address topics, discussions and shop time problem solving in a manner that is respectful to all individuals.

Junior Glass Students register for GLASS-4316 (Fall) and GLASS-4318 (Spring).

Senior Glass Students register for GLASS-4320 (Fall) and GLASS-4322 (Spring).

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

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.

This course is a requirement for 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.

This course is a requirement for Junior and Senior Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Sequential art is a thriving global art form whose recent history is grounded in three artistic, linguistic and publishing traditions: Comics, Manga, and Bande Dessinee. This course offers an intensive introduction to their creative possibilities. It will present storytelling and technical approaches that will enhance your ability to work as a writer and artist in the comics industry, as well as in other narrative driven fields. Assignments will take the shape of short form comics (1-8 pages) but students will also learn about writing, developing and pitching longer works such as graphic novels. During class discussions, we will engage in comparative study, identifying unexpected connections with other arts (literature, music, film, animation) while revealing the unique expressive potential of this medium.

Elective

This one-month workshop will explore the creative potential of ZBrush, the 3-D sculpting application from Pixologic. With so many uses, it's difficult to cover ZBrush completely, but by the end of the class you will have a solid understanding of the program, all its component tools and how to customize them and use them in your workflow, whether it's sculpting for game detail, animation, visualization, or rapid-prototyping. This workshop is a one-credit course that emphasizes skills and techniques. This class is part of a group of offerings by the departments of Illustration, Industrial Design and Graphic Design that are offered on Friday afternoons and are open to all students to facilitate cross-departmental enrollment.

Students must register for workshops during the registration period and add/drop regardless of start date of class.

Elective

In this senior level course emphasis is placed on the development and definition of individual direction. Students' work can range from installations to two-dimensional pieces and can employ any techniques and materials, from weaving, printing, knitting, or any improvised construction techniques.

Estimated Cost of Materials: Varies based on use of advanced equipment. Additional fees may incur.

Elective

This class is an intensive investigation of the processes of electroplating and electroforming copper metal by covering objects of various modeling materials to create new metal objects. All aspects of this technical application are discussed. Students are required to maintain an accurate logbook of their investigation while developing a body of work.

Major elective for Junior, Senior, and Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students. Experienced non-majors may enroll pending seat availability. To request permission, email the instructor and include images of past work.

Elective