ART 310: Design Thinking

Conner McDonald

ART 310: Design Thinking is a very unique and interesting course taught by professor Nan Goggin. Its course description includes phrases like “introduces design literacy” and “explores design thinking as the common thread that connects all disciplines concerned with the making of things”. I was definitely intrigued by this description, but what does this really say about the content of the course?

I decided to take the plunge and find out for myself. This has been my experience so far. The class is a mix of information about design principles, history, and creative thinking. We’ve discussed things like visual hierarchy, typography, and symbols. There are in-class creative exercises where students are challenged to create small drawings to convey ideas in unique and sometimes abstract ways. As far as out of class work, the assignments consist of interesting things like taking ten pictures every single day for twenty days or creating 2 variations of your resume, one that would be used by the most straight-laced professional you can imagine, and the other to be used by someone who is the complete opposite. These are just a few of the things that you can expect from this course. All of these creative exercises and all the information that is presented serve one main purpose, to give those in the class a better understanding of how to visually convey information.

If you are in the fields of advertising, communication, or PR I would highly recommend this course as way to strengthen your skills in creative thinking, design, and visual messaging. If nothing else, you will leave this class with a much more visually impressive resume and 3 more hours of your literature and arts gen-ed requirements finished. I personally can’t think of a class I’d rather be in to get those credits.