Foundation Program

The Foundation Program provides a unified and dynamic experience designed to build a durable framework for all areas of study in Visual Arts. This program is founded upon intensive lecture, studio, and lab investigation of techniques, methods, and concepts.

The curriculum broadens and expands a student’s formal creative design vocabulary, while introducing new ways of thinking about images, time, space, and audience. This program encourages students to think analytically and to use their imagination to develop an awareness of the role of artists in our culture.

Students with a major in Visual Arts and a studio concentration (Animation/Interactive Media, Cinematic Arts, Graphic Design, Photography, Print Media) are required to take the following courses:

Graphic Design Concentration

The Graphic Design concentration delves into those complex questions that absorb both the beginning and the advanced student in the expanding arena of visual communication. The curriculum encourages a rigorous handling of thought processes combined with inquiries springing from traditional, transitional and emerging media. The emergence of new multifaceted word and image forms opens the way for informed expression solidly built on curiosity, honest work, and the need to reason and create. The faculty encourages intellectual, intuitive and perceptual approaches to problem-solving, all balanced on the fundamental belief that effective communication, not style, is the desired goal. Although the graphic design concentration constantly acknowledges the influence and significance of new technologies in education, the question of essential sources for creative formative work is addressed through attention to development in the following areas: mark-making, reading and writing. These areas of observation are anchor points for development. Together, they provide the student with a comprehension of the intellectual and visual environment in which we live.

The study of design history, in association with instruction in typography, word and image, sign/symbol, semiotics and a range of digital and analog production methods form the foundation for a commitment through which research and expression can be accomplished. The graphic design concentration consists of a combination of required studio offerings in design and an elected group of technology-based courses in photography and/or computer-generated imagery. Design concepts and skills are fundamental to a broad range of careers and professions ranging from cultural, corporate, publishing and visual communications to graphic design and digital media. The requirements may be modified with permission of the graphic design advisor and faculty.

For B.A. students

with a concentration in Graphic Design, the following are required in addition to the visual arts core courses:

• ART 331 - Graphic Design I: Image, Sign and Symbol (3.00)
• ART 332 - Design and Technology I: Print (3.00)
• ART 333 - Typography I (3.00)
• ART 334 - Graphic Design IV: Word and Image (3.00)
• ART 335 - Origins and Issues in Design (3.00)
• ART 336 - Design and Technology II: Screen (3.00)
• ART 337 - Typography II (3.00)
• ART 430 - Typography III (3.00)
• ART 431 - Graphic Design III: Human Environmental Design (3.00)

Note:

ART 331 - Graphic Design I: Image, Sign and Symbol  is the gateway course and must be passed with a grade of “B” or better for students to continue on to upper-level graphic design courses.