This course explores interactive game design from the ground up, establishing game mechanics as the core architecture that drives player interaction, narrative, and interface. Using the open-source Godot engine, students will master node-based scene construction, modular workflows, and the technical foundations of 2D and 3D development while integrating AI-assisted programming through both cloud-based frontier models and locally hosted language models tailored to current software documentation. The curriculum spans game history, asset creation pipelines, resource management, and professional version control with Git and GitHub. By combining historical context, hands-on prototyping, and accessible AI tools that lower traditional coding barriers, students will conceptualize, build, and iterate on original interactive experiences, culminating in a fully playable prototype ready for further development.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy requirement for Illustration Students.

Elective

Milton Glaser once commented that a good designer “sees a way to unify separate occurrences and create a gestalt, an experience in which this new unity provides a new insight.” Excellent design is much more than the sum of its parts; its unified totality presents a visual reality, a world with its own inherent logic. This class will investigate imagery that is both picture and graphic form. In rigorous pursuit of the orchestration of shape, structure, movement, color palette, figure/ground, and pattern we will examine the tools and processes that lead to dynamic image design. While studying influential figures from the history of visual communication, students will undertake projects including posters, illustrations, symbols, logos, icons, information graphics, and other forms of imagery which explore the intersection of illustration and graphic design.

This course seeks to apply a design sensibility to the creation of illustrations. The formal characteristics include flatness, strong graphic quality, awareness of figure/ground, scale, color, placement – these all take precedence over naturalistic concerns, rendering and perspective. This is a stylistic approach that lends itself to clear, conceptual communication. The goal of communication is always primary; and assignments will require problem-solving as well as development of a clear and refined graphic approach. We will use form, geometry, pattern, white space, and perhaps, letterforms to achieve, as Milton Glaser put it “the unity and conviction that emerges from dealing with the total surface.”

This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration Students.

Elective

This typography course is specifically designed for Illustration majors. We will study the fundamentals of typography including its history, theory and contemporary practical application. Lectures and exercises will build in complexity from the study of letter forms and the effective use of typography in single page design. A significant part of the course will be dedicated to understanding page dynamics including proportion, grid systems and color. The final project will be a poster design for a local non- profit organization. Students will use Adobe Illustrator and InDesign throughout this course; so some basic computer experience will be helpful but not absolutely necessary.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

This course explores the role of illustrator as graphic designer, with a focus on the fundamentals of designing with imagery, the relationship between verbal and visual communication, and the complementary partnership between graphic design and illustration. Students are encouraged to have some fundamental experience with computers before enrolling in this course.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy elective requirement for Illustration Students.

Elective

Design For Good sits at the intersection of illustration, graphic design, and brand identity, with a focus on non-profits and social issues. Working across print and digital media, this course will challenge students to create innovative visual communication that motivates people around a social cause. Students will learn what makes a compelling visual identity, as well as a compelling story. Throughout the course of the semester, students will create brand identities based in illustration, along with visual and typographic guidelines, and apply it to creative campaigns, packaging design, and social media platforms. Through a series of weekly & bi-weekly assignments, students will build a portfolio of pieces that tie together as a unified, illustrated brand identity. Students are encouraged to conduct their own research & interviews with non-profit organizations as part of this course. Group work in class, research, individual presentations & group critiques are an essential part of this course.

Elective

Illustrated typography and hand lettering are enjoying a wonderfully prominent place in the visual landscape of design, publishing and illustration, and have become an increasingly vital part of many illustrator's professional portfolios. What can illustrated type and it's particular characteristics provide as an alternative to established typefaces? How does an illustrator find the right balance between form and function, expression and readability? This course will provide the opportunity to employ drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, photography, digital tools and other media in the creation of unique letterforms. Students will be encouraged to experiment with non-traditional materials -including three-dimensional ones. Beginning with an introduction to basic typographic elements, terminology, and font families, students will move into creating their own unique lettering for projects including posters, book covers, and packaging. Typography will be the central focus, but students will have leeway as to the degree with which it is integrated with other illustrative imagery. Along with these projects students will create a complete unique typeface over the course of the semester. Relevant issues related to hand drawn text-type for comics, picture books, and graphic novels - including appropriateness, readability and voice, will also be covered.

Elective

This course combines the business of art and design, transforming the creative impulse to a marketable deliverable. Students are encouraged to think beyond the confines of traditional markets, working collaboratively toward the goal of employing inventive thinking in the workplace with the goal of an independently owned and operated enterprise. A fundamental objective of this class is for students to understand a basic business vocabulary, to explore how design-driven business and creative studio thinking overlap, and to understand how creative skills can be used to identify and execute business opportunities. Students will be introduced to business concepts through lectures, case studies, assignments and class discussion. Assignments will work off the classroom pedagogy and topics covered will be business models, marketing, finance, and strategy as they relate to studio activity.

Elective

Footwear and accessories carry a lot of story: a hero's boots, a signature hat, a limited-edition sneaker. This Illustration elective uses them as a framework for teaching illustrators how to make a product feel believable and desirable, and how to build the visual identity around it. Students start by researching wearable objects in film, animation, games, and the footwear industry, then invent one original footwear or accessory concept and its world: who wears it, what it's made of, and what it costs. They develop the concept through a color and material story, a character illustration, and a product presentation board with illustrated title typography. Because illustrators in industry rarely make the product itself, students then extend the product's design language into the pieces illustrators do make: an illustrated currency for their world, and a branded product artifact such as an item card, hangtag, patch, or package that carries the product's look, name, and story. The semester ends with a class marketplace where students price, trade, and buy each other's products, making the critique a live test of what people want and why. Drawing on faculty experience in men's and women's footwear and accessories, the course connects illustration skills to fashion, product, branding, merch, and creative direction.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $75.00 - $140.00

Elective

The Changing Narrative will explore the challenges and possibilities of innovative storytelling structure: non-linear, interactive, multimedia. In this class, students will create inventive work at the intersection of physical and digital media, the old and the new. Students will be introduced to classic dramatic structures across cultures-Asian Kishotenketsu, Freytag's pyramid, Shakespearean tragedy-and learn fundamental digital skills via class demonstrations and exercises. Drawing from these patterns and tools, students will then seek to unveil new storytelling possibilities granted by modern technology (computer animation, touch screen interaction, hypermedia) to traditional artforms (illustration, comics, gaming). What happens when a comic's panel starts to move? Where does a story go if the reader is allowed to make decisions? Students will investigate these creative avenues and create playful, hybrid stories. Along the course of the semester, assignments will notably include short-form animated illustrations, experiments with gamebooks and cartoon strips, culminating in a final, long-form narrative project.

This course fulfills either the Illustration Concepts elective requirement OR the Computer Literacy requirement (not both) for Illustration Students.

Elective

This course celebrates books of all kinds, for readers of all ages. We start by studying picture books for children and make our way through graphic novels (comics), the young adult novel, poetry, fiction for adults, etc. The last part of the semester is spent creating a book of your own choosing from one of these genres.

Elective

At their very core, all books convey a sequence of ideas, but the execution varies widely from one volume to another. In this course, juniors and seniors strive to extend this concept outside of traditional book parameters to achieve their own creative interpretation. Working from their own themes, students mold an innovative presentation of images and concepts in two dimensions or three, using concrete depictions or abstract forms in the construction of their own unique artist's book. Assignments include the study of different folds, narrative problems, poetic counting, lost and found, and a free project of the student's choice. Students are encouraged to continue their own media that might include painting, construction, printmaking, etc.

Elective

Sketchbooks are places of safety and freedom, where artists can do whatever they please: play with ideas, explore unproven paths, go against the grain, experiment with unfamiliar techniques, document the world in deeply personal ways or just doodle without any pressure that out of this engagement a masterpiece will be born.  From working in sketchbooks regularly, artists develop a habit of engaging with the more experimental side of their practice, and from the lack of pressure new directions and bodies of work may be born. Using a range of materials and approaches, students will explore the creative possibilities of working with sketchbooks. Hands-on work will include binding our own sketchbooks using a number of different book forms (coptic, accordion, Hedi Kyle’s pocket and blizzard books, etc), responding to weekly prompts, experimenting with materials and processes (digital fabrication using Co-Works, experimental printmaking, sewing, embroidery, collage, papier machée, natural inks/dyes) working individually and collaboratively, visiting a local book bindery, artist visit, and proposing and executing a final independent project. We'll also examine artists' sketchbooks and notebooks including those of artists from non-Western traditions

Elective

In this class, we will explore the children's picture book as a medium of artistic expression. During the first half of the semester, we will experiment with a number of storytelling techniques and principles while also focusing on different approaches to the format, illustration, and design of picture books. The second half of the semester will be dedicated to the creation of the final project: each student will complete a book dummy for an original children's picture book accompanied by several finished Illustrations.

This is a co-requisite course. Students must also register for LAS E416 - Picture and Word.

Elective

Children have an underestimated capacity to process complex stories, and are often misunderstood as an audience. Their hungry minds depend on imagery to make sense of life and to navigate through their evolving worlds. In this course, students will explore a variety of art forms destined to educate, stimulate and delight children-books, displays, characters, games. Assignments will include works for a variety of industries including publishing, advertising, gift/novelty, and focus on a range of age groups: toddlers to teens. Students will be challenged to create opportunities for discovery that are worthy of this curious and gracious audience.

Elective

In their brevity and concentrated potency, short stories are compelling material for illustration. This course invites students to illustrate short fiction authored by a variety of voices and in several genres, while allowing for formal and conceptual development and the cultivation of distinctive visual character (or style) along the way. Reading, analysis, ideation and execution are central to course content.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $10.00 - $50.00

Elective

An all encompassing visual autobiography won't happen in five weeks but Wintersession does give us the exceptional opportunity to embrace the spirit of memoir, here brought to life as illustrations. Your personal stories undoubtedly touch on universal themes : childhood, coming of age, cultural identity, navigating the unfamiliar, overcoming obstacles, among countless others. We'll use journals to recollect the past and examine the present as part of the creative process - transforming raw material into reworked sketches that ultimately become polished illustrations with you at their center.

Elective

The ability to play is a complex activity that is at the core of human learning. Games are a structured form of play that allow us to explore social interactions, take risks, set goals, develop skills and expand our imaginations while entertaining us without serious consequences. What makes a game fun? Or memorable? In this class, we will explore the intersections of learning, experimentation, and play. In our constructed projects, we will search for innovative ways to expand or reinvent game traditions. Through individual and collaborative projects, we will examine how game mechanics (rules/systems) thoughtfully combined with game aesthetics (visuals/story) can be used to craft engaging, memorable and informative user/player experiences. Our goal is to develop primarily non-digital games that are conceptually innovative responses to various questions you pose related to play. Quality assurance and usability concerns will be explored through group play tests.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy elective requirement for Illustration Students.

Elective

Illustration, along with painting, printmaking and many other visual art practices, is continually intertwined with music. From illustrators collaborating on videos, packaging and promotion, to creating graphic novels and picture biographies of musicians and musical movements, the tradition of connecting the visual to the acoustic has a rich history. Music is often celebrated in larger and in a more tactile ways than on a screen-and we are seeing the enduring inventiveness of the gig poster, and even the 12 inch LP cover is still alive as a canvas. Projects in this class will explore promotional, interpretive, and investigative approaches as they relate to musicians, lyrics and titles, as well as parallels between music and visual art. Students will have the chance to interpret musical works in a number of ways, including through narrative approaches, using sculpture, animation and GIFs, and other less conventional means. There will be exploration of analogous aspects of music and visual art-sound and color, time based works, performative aspects and related ideas (e.g.: the movements of the hand while drawing/painting as analogous to playing an instrument). There will be some focus too, on genres and movements where music and art have close relationships, ie: psychedelia, pop and op art, comics and set design. Lectures and discussion will also be devoted to learning about artists who create both visual and musical work.

This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration Students.

Elective

This course offers an introduction to the art and practice of the no longer taboo world of tattooing, merging the student’s unique visual language with technical mastery of the medium. Students will explore the history and cultural landscapes of tattooing, considering its roots in ancient traditions and its evolution into one of the most compelling and accessible contemporary art forms, transforming the human body into a dynamic canvas of personal expression and cultural dialogue. As an immersive experience into the tattoo industry, this course combines theory with hands-on practice, giving students the ability to create original designs that translate into tattoos that consider practical, real-world applications. Students will hand draw their tattoo designs to create a collection of unique imagery that will enhance their illustrative skills and problem-solving abilities. Projects will be designed to challenge students, in order to build a body of work that not only draws upon existing tattoo styles but blends, adapts and advances these styles to make distinctive, individual pieces of art.

 Throughout the course, students will not only develop their tattooing artistic abilities but also focus on equipment handling, machine setup, maintenance, and operation, as well as the proper use of specific needles and inks, in order to create smooth, clean and detailed line work and shading. An understanding of skin structure is crucial for effective tattooing and students will also study healing processes and the importance of sanitation practices to ensure client safety and comfort.  Students will create a collection of technically sound tattoos which will be applied on synthetic silicone fake skin, using actual tattoo machines and cartridge needles, ensuring a holistic understanding of both the technical and artistic aspects of tattooing. This course aims to create a community of artists who respect the tradition of tattooing while pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation within this lucrative and thriving field.

A liability waiver (submitted on the first day of class) is required for safe use of tattoo machines and needles. Work is to be exclusively performed on simulated silicone skin, and use of the equipment on human or animal subjects is not permitted.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $80.00 - $100.00

Elective

This course surveys a wide range of effects possible through versatile printmaking methods including monotype, relief printing and drypoint. The emphasis is on experimentation rather than editioning prints.

Elective