Sequenced instruction provides rigorous training in the use of gesture, anatomy, and structural figure drafting. Drawing the human figure from the inside out fosters an understanding of complex visual relationships. Upon completion of the course, students are able to analyze the human form and to view it as a complex perceptual model for the larger realm of visual experience. 

Recommended for students planning to select Digital Media, Toy Design and Fashion Design as their major; open to students interested in any major.

A first semester Foundation course focused on studying, researching and exploring practices of creativity that bridge art/design disciplines. Through a variety of methodologies, lecture, research and discussion, Creative Practices I provides students opportunities to develop perceptual abilities in ways that incite curiosity and engagement with inquiry. Learning to ‘see’, students question their assumptions of what and how they observe complex visual relationships, locate bias, and develop awareness of context and intentionality of their own work and that of peers and exemplars. Projects are self-directed and non-discipline specific.

Recommended for students planning to select Product Design, Fine Arts, or Communication Arts: Graphic Design as their major.

This course is a sequenced investigation of various organizing principles using traditional and contemporary media. Students learn fundamentals of value manipulation as determinants of visual order. Elements of visual literacy provide a basis for the study of compositional fundamentals, including focal point(s), directional elements, and visual weight.

Students study form in both two-dimensional rendering and three-dimensional building through drawing and building objects. Skills of relational measurement, compositional organization, and the placement of form in space inform both drawing and form-building activities. Drawing techniques such as perspective and isometric projection facilitate successful form generation.

Lab fee: $30

Students will explore the ongoing cultural, technological and social changes that impact our ways of reading and writing, and what it means to be literate in the digital world. The class focuses on refining students’ critical thinking and information literacy skills, encouraging them to consider audience, context, and purpose when revising their writing. A minimum grade of “C-” is required to pass this course. 

Prerequisite: Successful completion of ENGL090 or placement through the Writing Placement Assessment.

Introduces issues and theories that are critical to an examination of art, design, and the larger visual landscape. Students explore the importance of context in shaping how art and design are understood, and through a consideration of global concerns, learn to challenge the predominant canon of western art history.

A first semester Foundation course focused on studying, researching and exploring practices of creativity that bridge art/design disciplines. Through a variety of methodologies, lecture, research and discussion, Creative Practices I provides students opportunities to develop perceptual abilities in ways that incite curiosity and engagement with inquiry. Learning to ‘see’, students question their assumptions of what and how they observe complex visual relationships, locate bias, and develop awareness of context and intentionality of their own work and that of peers and exemplars. Projects are self-directed and non-discipline specific.

Recommended for students planning to select Product Design, Fine Arts, or Communication Arts: Graphic Design as their major.

A second-semester Foundation course focused on exploring practices of creativity that bridge art/design disciplines. Students are exposed to a diverse range of concepts, materials, and methods for working creatively. In-class activities promote the documentation of individual creative processes and the synthesis of intuitive, culturally constructed, and personal impulses into inventive visual responses.

Recommended for students planning to select Product Design, Fine Arts, or Communication Arts: Graphic Design as their major; open to students interested in any major.

Sequenced instruction provides rigorous training in the use of gesture, anatomy, and structural figure drafting. Drawing the human figure from the inside out fosters an understanding of complex visual relationships. Upon completion of the course, students are able to analyze the human form and to view it as a complex perceptual model for the larger realm of visual experience. 

Recommended for students planning to select Digital Media, Toy Design and Fashion Design as their major; open to students interested in any major.

Structural drawing and perceptual skills are expanded through study of the figure's relation to environment, life-scale, movement, and draping. Students discover individual sensibilities of mark making and aspects of personal vision, through a variety of traditional and experimental drawing media and techniques.

Prerequisite: FNDT180 Life Drawing I
Recommended for students planning to select Digital Media, Fashion Design or Toy Design as their major.

A second-semester Creative Action studio course introducing students to contextually- based problem solving using fundamentals of color and design. Students learn Munsell color theory and practical aspects of color mixing such as value, hue, and chroma. Students apply these skills in solving problems that engage the larger community, trans- disciplinary practice, research, and collaboration. Prerequisite: FNDT115 Principles of Design

Students employ acquired skills transferred from Drawing and Building Form to explore and exploit materials as well as to discover unique processes in creating novel form. The study of three-dimensional design expands to encompass meaning construction, composition and research as students engage the more complex issues of form and space.

Prerequisite: FNDT160 Drawing and Building Form
Recommended for students planning to select A/L/I, Fashion Design, Toy Design or Product Design as their major.

Students transfer and expand on observational drawing skills acquired from Drawing and Building Form with the application of color and addition of problem finding and complexity of idea. Acquisition of research skills, and the introduction of more varied drawing media, methods and materials fosters students’ realization of aspects of personal vision.

Prerequisite: FNDT 160 Drawing & Building Form

Recommended for students planning to select Digital Media as their major​​​​​

Foundation year students can pick any Foundation Elective to fulfil this requirement. See the department or the Course Catalog for more information.

This course explores how art and other forms of cultural production were impacted by the social and cultural changes that occurred in the modern world.

Ways of Knowing is an interdisciplinary, participation-based course designed to explore the role narrative plays in shaping our understanding of our diverse personal and collective identities. The stories we tell ourselves and those we pass on to others, as well as the stories we inherit, actively contribute to our openness to cultural differences in local and global settings. Through the lens of the story and the culture from which it emerges, students will connect the emotion, language, and intellectual thought central to compelling storytelling to their exploration of the five LAS themes of identity, diversity, creativity, social responsibility and sustainability.

Introduction to the fundamental principles and tools of storytelling over time, using viz dev, concept art, motion design, and more.

Introduces students to 3-D animation. Students begin to learn about space and the principles of animation. They then proceed to 3-D computer animation, with special emphasis on its use to communicate stories for film, television, and video games.

Students learn how to apply research, critical analysis, brainstorming, and improvisational techniques in order to create ideas for effective storytelling and communication.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

More than one course may be available, see the Course Catalog and consult the department and/or your advisor for more information.

Creative Action Liberal Arts electives enable students to work in transdisciplinary teams with a community partner. Emphasizing collaborative methodology, synthesizing diverse perspectives, creativity, critical thinking, clear communication, and information literacy, students engage in issues that extend beyond the traditional classroom. See department for course offerings.

Students research and visit various video game developers, special effects houses, postproduction facilities, film and TV Studios, independent design houses, and freelancers, as an exposure to the positions available in the industry and the different cultures of these companies.

An introduction to basic design and motion design principles and techniques.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

More than one course may be available, see the Course Catalog and consult the department and/or your advisor for more information.

More than one course may be available, see the Course Catalog and consult the department and/or your advisor for more information.

This course continues students’ work on storytelling over time, with a concentration on the various genres that students may work within our areas of concentration. Students will explore the fundamentals of horror, comedy, fantasy, science fiction, drama, and more using our digital storytelling tools.

These classes will balance further instruction in design principles with actual production of motion graphics pieces.

Who are your heroes? Who inspires you? To be a great designer and artist you have to know who came before and what they thought and did. From this and their own unique background, students will discover their voice and hopefully inspire the next generation. Learn how the great ones achieved their remarkable and lasting successes by studying their work and analyzing those films, animations, games, designs, and more.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

More than one course may be available, see the Course Catalog and consult the department and/or your advisor for more information.

More than one course may be available, see the Course Catalog and consult the department and/or your advisor for more information.

Typography, color, shape, light, and more help make for effective motion design. Learn the fundamental principles of each of these and work on combining them to create effective motion design pieces.

These classes will balance further instruction in design principles with actual production of motion graphics pieces.

An upper-division interdisciplinary studio course offering unique core content that shifts from term to term. This studio affords students the opportunity to engage with professionals from various fields and expand their notion of problem solving beyond their major in public site real world challenges.

A limited choice of CAIL300 courses will count for the Sustainability Minor.
Please see the Interdisciplinary Studies Director.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

Explores the connections between math and art in two and three dimensions. The class includes an exploration of Escher’s work, tiling the plane, fractals, and the golden ratio. It also covers topics such as graphing equations and geometric constructions.

This course can be an upper division Art History or upper division Liberal Studies elective. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for examples of upper division elective offerings or see the Department and/or your Adviser for more information.

Students develop their own final projects. Class and professional critiques help students develop their work, while learning from the creative processes of their classmates. Students collect their work from drawing classes, their storyboards, and other parts of the creative process, to be used as windows into their personal working styles.

This course provides a practical introduction to skills for acquiring and keeping a job, as well as the processes for developing a freelance business. Students learn presentation techniques and practical business concepts, from accounting and personal finances to business communications and networking.

Students pick a topic generated from outside companies and designers who give one or more assignments across the year. Learn how to run projects from start to finish. Fall Semester will consist of Problem definition, Responsibilities + Expectations, Research the opportunity, Research the creative space, Explore and Sketch, and Prototype.

Develops the creative and problem solving skills needed to be an effective artist and designer. Regardless of their area of concentration, students learn techniques for overcoming creative block. Students learn the skills needed to either lead a team or participate as an effective member of a creative team.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

A required senior- level course where students identify and critically reflect on a theme that intersects with their own studio practice, discipline, and/or identity and their work in Liberal Studies. The Capstone is the signature course and culminating expression of the Liberal Arts program.

A minimum grade of “C-" or better is required to pass this course.

Note that Creative Writing, Art History, Cultural Studies, Sustainability minors, and Fine Arts majors take specific Capstones. Please see department for courses.

Students are given the time to work on their senior projects. Storytelling, storyboarding, and other issues are discussed in relationship to students’ personal or group projects. Critiques are a vital part of this process and assist the students in understanding their own creative processes, as well as those of others.

Course Fee: $100 

Continuing from the first semester, students learn more about job availability. They practice interviewing techniques, write a professional résumé, and document and organize their work to create appropriate reels and portfolios, with the goal of packaging and presenting themselves to employers.

Continuing the work from Practicum I, spring semester will consist of Test, Select and Iterate, Plan, Produce, and Deliver the finished pieces.

A Studio Elective is any art and/or design course with visual production (not a Liberal Arts and Sciences course) that may be offered within or outside a student’s studio major. Students must meet the course’s prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, class level, or other criteria specified in the Course Description. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for a complete list of courses.

These are timely and ever evolving electives designed to extend the students’ expertise and experience in creating and producing outstanding motion design pieces and campaigns.

This course can be an upper division Art History or upper division Liberal Studies elective. See the Course Catalog (pdf) for examples of upper division elective offerings or see the Department and/or your Adviser for more information.