Teaching

A foundation-level course that enables students, regardless of background, to understand the concept of design thinking, consider its benefits in their own field of study (and life), and provides the basic tools to leverage the design process. Throughout the course, students practice several new tools and skills that they can use to tap into creativity, build empathy, identify problems, and try and evaluate ideas quickly. The course culminates in a project where they can put all the pieces together into one process. The overarching goal of the course is to help students build your creative confidence and give them the tools needed to bring design thinking into their own work and field.

Spring 2021 Syllabus

Fall 2020 Syllabus

Sophomore Level

HER-V 220 Foundations of Graphic Design

An introduction to form-making in graphic design through the exploration of the elements and principles of design. This course emphasizes using the iterative design process to develop unique and appropriate graphic design solutions.

Fall 2024 Syllabus
Fall 2023 Syllabus

HER-V 250 Professional Preparation

This course provides students an overview of career options in the ﬁeld of design and prepares them to create the materials necessary to enter the ﬁeld. Through a variety of projects, students will hone their skills in job searching, interviewing, and professional presentation.

Fall 2024 Syllabus

HER-V 211 Typography 1

Fall 2023 Syllabus

Junior Level

HER-V 308 Exploring Art & Design in Denmark

A Study Abroad trip and corresponding course focused on Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the capitals of Modernist design in Europe. Students attend lectures from leading design organizations, visit sites of cultural significance, and experience public and private spaces that typify user or people-centered design.

Spring 2024 Syllabus

Spring 2019 Syllabus

HER-V 311 Type & Image

An upper-level typography course focusing on communication systems, parsing complexity in order to create understanding, and refining technical skills relevant to producing professional-quality comps across a variety of formats building on work from Typography.

Fall 2021 Syllabus

HER-A 453/HER-V 350 Professional Practice Internship

This course offers visual communication design and photography students the opportunity to learn through a supervised experience in professional work settings. In addition to activities associated with their internship, students participate in a series of dissuasions and writing prompts to reflect on their on-the-job learning. Prerequisite (for VCD majors): HER-V 250 Professional Preparation.

Example Syllabus (Course taught 2020-present)

Senior Level

HER-V 400 Designing People-Centered Experiences

An upper-level studio course that introduces students to the approaches and tools of Experience Design. It provides a methodological overview of experience design from the perspective of a visual communication designer. By exploring a range of activities associated with experience design, this course prepares students to make an informed decision about what approaches and outcomes they would like to pursue during their capstone project.

Fall 2021 Syllabus

Fall 2020 Syllabus

Fall 2019 Syllabus

HER-V 408 Mobile UI

Mobile User Interface (UI) Design is an 8-week course focused on people-centered digital experience design for mobile devices. This course helps prepare visual communication design majors to work in the tech and or startup communities as User Interface Designers.

Fall 2019 Syllabus

HER-V 423 Speculative Design

This course explores speculative design as a means of imagining possible futures and influencing societal change. Students will study design fiction, critical design, and design for social impact, and will develop their own speculative design projects.

Spring 2025 Syllabus

HER-V490 Capstone in VCD

This course is the culmination of a four-year undergraduate training in Visual Communication Design. Throughout the VCD curriculum, students learn ‘best practices’ in their selected design field. In this final VCD course, students leverage the sum of their acquired skills to design and implement a people-centered design project. Students identify unframed problem spaces, conduct research methods to uncover solutions, and develop visual communication design solutions that address their findings. Students format and present their work in various professional settings and receive feedback from both internal and external audiences.

Spring 2024 Syllabus

Spring 2022 Syllabus

Spring 2021 Syllabus

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse