Ramon Tejada

Associate Professor

Ramon Tejada is an independent Dominican-American designer and teacher based in Providence. He works in a hybrid design-teaching practice that focuses on collaborative design practices and not-for-profit and educational organizations. He has taught in the graduate MFA Communication Design program at Pratt Institute and at the undergraduate level at Parsons/The New School, CUNY–Queens College and in the MA program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). He received an MFA in Performance Arts from Bennington College and an MFA in Graphic Design from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

Courses

Fall 2023 Courses

GRAPH 323G-01 - GRADUATE STUDIO I
Level Graduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Fall 2023
Credits 6
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

GRAPH 323G-01

GRADUATE STUDIO I

Level Graduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Fall 2023
Credits 6
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: TH | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PM Instructor(s): Bethany Johns, Ramon Tejada Location(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 502 Enrolled / Capacity: 15 Status: Closed

SECTION DESCRIPTION

This studio course, as groundwork for the graduate thesis, will emphasize inquiry as a primary means for learning. Through making, reflection, collaboration, and critique, we will explore the underlying principles that design objects require, and synthesize theory and practice as necessary partners in graphic design. We will look at the designer's role in the process of revealing and making meaning - as an objective mediator, and as an author/producer, integrating content and form across projects as visual expressions of the preliminary thesis investigation.

Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday. 


Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design

GRAPH 2120-01 - UNMAKING STUDIO
Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

GRAPH 2120-01

UNMAKING STUDIO

Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: T | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PM Instructor(s): Ramon Tejada Location(s): Design Center, Room 704 Enrolled / Capacity: 12 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

How do designers respond, think about and make for equitable futures? How much do we need to scrap or throw under the proverbial bus (ourselves included)? Unmaking studio is a space that explores possibilities through collaborative experimentation and reflection on how we can design in pluralistic ways. We will intentionally break habits, structures, tools, methods, and models of thought that have become canonized as the way to make Graphic Design. Along the way, we will experiment, at times in collaboration, with a series of prompts that explore analog and digital outcomes — forms, images, stories, languages, publications, the unknown, the emergent — thinking about the stories our work tells about ourselves (our lineages, our choices, and our values), our communities, and how all of this has the potential to radically and joyfully shift how we engage as human beings.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Open to Junior, Senior or Graduate Graphic Design Students.

Elective

Spring 2024 Courses

GRAPH 3211-01 - COLOR + SURFACE
Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

GRAPH 3211-01

COLOR + SURFACE

Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: M | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PM Instructor(s): Ramon Tejada, Richard Rose Location(s): Design Center, Room 704 Enrolled / Capacity: 16 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design

GRAPH 3211-02 - COLOR + SURFACE
Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

GRAPH 3211-02

COLOR + SURFACE

Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: M | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PM Instructor(s): Nancy Skolos, Ramon Tejada Location(s): Design Center, Room 206 Enrolled / Capacity: 16 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design

GRAPH 3215-03 - TYPOGRAPHY II
Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

GRAPH 3215-03

TYPOGRAPHY II

Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: W | 11:20 AM - 4:20 PM Instructor(s): Ramon Tejada Location(s): Design Center, Room 801 Enrolled / Capacity: 16 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

The second semester continues the development of typographic practice by exploring the conditions in which type operates: the systems needed to work with varying scales and narrative structures. Students will design large-scale and small-scale work simultaneously; understanding the trade-offs of various formats and contexts. The course also extends basic typesetting into more extended reading experiences. Students will learn to set the conditions for readability by creating order, expressing emotion and making meaning. Students will design and bind a book while understanding how the traditions of the codex relate to onscreen reading. Within the durable form of the book, lies centuries of conventions like indexical systems, footnotes, page matter and more. Students also will become better readers, by engaging with contemporary issues in the field of typography and type design. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class, often on a computer. There is an expectation that students work both individually and in groups and be prepared to speak about their own work and the work of their peers in supportive and respectful ways. A laptop and relevant software are required.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design

GRAPH 3220-01 - DESIGN STUDIO 2
Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

GRAPH 3220-01

DESIGN STUDIO 2

Level Undergraduate
Unit Graphic Design
Subject Graphic Design
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: TH | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PM Instructor(s): Ramon Tejada Location(s): Design Center, Room 210 Enrolled / Capacity: 16 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

In the first two semesters of a two-year studio track, students will come into contact with issues and questions that face the contemporary designer. Students will engage with and develop methods to take on these questions: search (formal and intellectual), research, analysis, ideation, and prototyping. Projects will increase in complexity over time, sequenced to evolve from guided inquiry to more open, self-generated methodologies. Some examples of the questions students might work with are: What is graphic? or How are tools shaped by contemporary culture, technology, and convention? or How is a spatial or dimensional experience plotted and communicated? These questions will be accompanied by a mix of precedents, theoretical contexts, readings and presentations, technical and/or formal exercises and working methods.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design