Graphic designers today must be ready to tackle a wide range of projects from identity design to advertising design to product and packaging design.
In this course, you'll establish a firm foundation for taking on professional design work. You'll gain insights from industry veterans and explore the challenges of designing posters, logos, magazine covers, book layouts, 3D designs, and brand identities.
Looking to establish a career as a freelance designer? The course also provides you opportunities to hone your design process, as you research each project, develop concepts, work with constructive feedback, and develop quality pieces for your portfolio.
Develop graphic design work and concepts based on professional creative approaches and
techniques.
Develop graphic design work and concepts based on professional creative approaches and
techniques.
Apply traditional and digital design techniques to create polished graphic design pieces.
Select and set typography to communicate a specific message in logo designs and page
layouts.
Use knowledge of the characteristics of type to create cohesive and expressive logo
designs.
Use a layout grid and professional layout rules to design engaging magazine covers, article
spreads, book covers, and book chapter pages.
Create magazine and book layout designs with a clear visual hierarchy of information.
Create a basic three-dimensional product packaging design working from a client brief.
Incorporate existing brand rules into product packaging designs and other graphic design
projects.
Develop an understanding of how to manage the graphic designer/client/vendor
relationship, including promotion and billing.
Organize work for use in physical and online design portfolios and produce a final portfolio
piece that involves printing, labeling, package design, and photography.
Course Curriculum
Understanding color requires that you understand its systems, interaction—even a bit of physics! This course deals with the abstract language of color. We’ll discuss basic color principles, terminology, and applications, with an emphasis on manipulating color.
Through interactive lectures and hands-on exercises, you’ll learn how to classify typefaces and use them creatively.
In this course, you’ll learn the art and craft of package design. You’ll experience how to design packages for a wide variety of projects, clients, and customers. Key course concepts will include seeing and designing in three dimensions, mass vs. prestige design, designing for target markets, playful design and product lines. Portfolio projects range from low end to high end packaging.
A major course emphasis is on creativity and portfolio-quality work. Whether you’re looking to branch out into package design or simply add some knockout pieces to your graphic design portfolio, this course will stretch your abilities.
In this course, you’ll learn the principles of the advertising design from both a creative and a business perspective. Case studies from print and web showcase advertising concepts at work: persuasion, color psychology and composition, copywriting and typography, and brand communication.
Class projects include ads for newspapers, magazines, subways, and transit/outdoor applications, and a final project in which you create an entire ad campaign. Use this course to build your portfolio and address concepts that every ad designer should know.
Explore through case studies the essential skills required to design logos, and corporate identity materials. You’ll be designing or redesigning company identities for both existing companies and newly established businesses.
How do you succeed as a graphic designer? learn how to conceptualize projects, create balanced layouts, distill complex information, and motivate your audience. Explore and apply approaches to color and composition in design.
In this advanced, hands-on course, you’ll build skills for the toughest graphic design projects. Class assignments can range from catalog layout, magazine and book design, poster and direct mail design.
To manage a print job effectively, you must understand how printers work, how to communicate with them, and how to identify the best design solution for your budget.
Tired of learning the hard way? In this course, you can learn the technical fundamentals of producing professional-looking print publications. Through detailed lessons and hands-on exercises, you’ll learn what you need to know at every step of the printing process. You’ll learn to choose file formats and fonts, specify or separate colors, and manage the different phases of the final production workflow.
If you’re entering the workplace or embarking on a new phase of your career, you need to make a memorable impression in today’s competitive marketplace. Your work will be individually reviewed, and specific recommendations made to upgrade and strengthen your portfolio. You’ll design your own identity, stationary and business cards, explore conventional and unconventional ways to promote yourself
