OUR VISION
The program curriculum and co-curricular activities are designed to produce business leaders who can make strategically sound and creative design decisions. Strategic Design Fellows will master the creative problem-solving and innovative-thinking skills and experiences along with marketing strategy and design techniques needed to be competitive in today’s job market (including design and brand management).
This program is intentionally interdisciplinary with mutual benefit to be gained by collaboration between marketing and design students in developing creative business solutions through case competitions, a retail design project, and work for real clients and challenges from sponsored marketing competitions.
APPLICATION
REQUIREMENTS
The program provides students with the opportunity to develop their design skills through creating posters, magazine spreads, infographic resumes and online portfolios. Students will also collaborate in groups and brand themselves as an advertising agency.
Applications are accepted December 1 through February 15. Interested applicants should be rising juniors or sophomores (rising seniors by special request); have a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA; and be a marketing or studio art major.
YEAR ONE — FALL
Principles of Marketing provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts of marketing including the marketing of service and nonprofit organizations. You will learn marketing strategy through an understanding of segmentation, targeting, and positioning and examine the role of marketing research and consumer behavior in determining target markets. The "four Ps"--product, place, price, and promotion --are explored through the lens of satisfying customer needs, wants, and desires.
Design in Marketing explores the role design plays in marketing strategy. Marketers and designers must work together to offer different but complementary creative skills and perspectives to create a sustainable competitive advantage for the firm or organization. This course brings those two worlds together. Students will examine how individual and corporate interests can be served through the effective use of design in product and service development, management, branding, and packaging. Cases will explore applications in retail, workplace, ecological, fashion, automotive, and wayfinding.
Students create an online portfolio as their final individual course project.
This course is an introduction to computer graphics and visual communication principles. You will explore fundamental design principles through digital visual communication projects. Technology content will include photo manipulation, digital illustration and page layout. You will complete a personal branding and team projects using InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop from Adobe's Creative Suite.
YEAR TWO — FALL
This course introduces you to the agency environment through real-world projects with a client and a case competition. You will work in "agency" teams for the semester. The first half of the semester, you will work on a pitch to a real client which differs from year to year. Past clients include Long Roofing, Baltimore Orioles, and Washington Wizards. In the second half of the semester, you will work on a case competition. Students will also learn about branding, advertising, and media through guest speakers.
This is the advanced course in graphic design and computer graphics. You will learn Figma and Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and Rush. If you are already comfortable creating page layouts in InDesign, using the pen tool in Illustrator, and sizing images for print and web in Photoshop, you may enroll in this course during year one. This course is optional for second year Strategic Design Fellows.
