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.
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 a group setting to create an original retail concept and brand themselves as an advertising agency.
APPLICATION
REQUIREMENTS
YEAR ONE — FALL
An introduction to the concepts and principles of marketing including the marketing of service and nonprofit organizations. Provides an overview of all the concepts in marketing including relationship marketing, product development, pricing, promotion, marketing research, consumer behavior, international marketing, distribution and internal marketing to employees.
This course is an introduction to computer graphics and visual communication principles. Students will explore fundamental design principles through digital visual communication projects. Technology content will include photo manipulation, digital illustration and page layout. Students will complete projects using their class instruction in InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop from Adobe's Creative Suite.
Course introduces students to design thinking and how companies can differentiate themselves in the marketplace through design.
Experiential learning activities, guest speakers, field trips and a semester-long retail project encourages students to learn the strategic role design plays in products, packaging, UX/UI, retail stores, workplaces, way-finding, branding, infographics, presentation, fashion, and automobile design. Students also increase their visual literacy while learning the history of design.
Students are given semester-long project in which they develop a retail concept and pitch them to business professionals. Students also create an online portfolio as their final individual course project.
YEAR TWO — FALL
This course introduces students to the agency environment through real-world projects with a client and a case competition. Students are placed in agency teams for the semester. The first half of the semester, students 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, students will work on a case competition. Students will also learn about branding, advertising, and media through guest speakers from a variety of backgrounds including agency, corporate, and more. This course is taught by Lance Wain.
