Design Degrees Online

Universidad Centroamericana de Ciencias Empresariales (UCEM) offers the student community of Nicaragua’s career interior design, which fills a gap in the needs of development in the new millennium imposes. Excellent designers dominate, live and breathe in the aesthetic and functional. As pioneers of design in Nicaragua, UCEM provides a strong foundation in the basics, encouraging an individual to develop design and development along with creativity, technical information, historical and ideological influences, the production and communication skills, the which are components of work of the design process.

INTERIOR DESIGN gives the perception of the human form at work, play and rest, and develop awareness of the limitations of each human being. UCEM, transmitting knowledge, skills, approaches and attitudes to students. Intended to give graduates a career overview of the subject, with a realistic and relevant to current and future perspectives, combining form and function. The interior design graduates are prepared to play level jobs as a freelance designer, residential space planners, design consultants, property sales, graphic drawings, designs in architectural firms, designers and project coordinators.

Receive specialized courses in commercial design, residential design clinics and hospitals, sports and relaxation, religious and cultural design: galleries, museums and shopping malls, among many others. The graduate of Interior Design of UCEM is able to:

• Analyze and critique from an objective, scientifically based and appropriate technological tools, elements and factors that shape the development of the construction activity in general and particular design.
• Mastering and using technology and information technology tools to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the design process in the workplace, housing and recreational facilities, taking into account the current reality that suffers the impact of factors affecting these systems.
• Manage the instrumental bases of English language.
• Ensure that the different spaces are inclinated a functional and friendly relationship with the environment.
• Handle the different conceptions and views, both traditional and innovative or fashionable, to choose the most appropriate and useful to the environment in question.

Graphic artists are essential in communicating information—the look of print or digital material is critical to successfully communicating its message. Revolutionary changes are occurring in this field, so a graphic artist’s training must be technologically up-to-date, while built on a strong foundation of traditional design skills. At Grace, future designers develop both, using traditional materials along with computer training on the latest software utilized by professional designers.

The fashion design industry is a fast-paced, competitive, and ever-changing field. You need hard work, determination, and a creative and technical mindset to succeed in this field. Successful designers must understand and adapt to the changes and challenges of the fashion industry. They must have the ability to visually present their ideas and to produce them. That is precisely what the Associate of Arts in Fashion Design program can prepare graduates to do.

Enhance Your Skills
The fashion design program is designed to prepare students with the skills that employers in the design industry want to see, including a strong foundation of design, illustration, computer, and presentation skills. You can gain hands-on experience not only in pattern making, clothing construction, draping, and specialty design, but also in creating storyboards and visual presentations from illustration and computer techniques. The implementation of computer graphics into the curriculum could provide you with even more of a competitive edge by teaching you to use the computer for fashion illustrations, textile design, flats and specifications, graphic layouts, and spreadsheets.

Interior Design — Bachelor of Science
Interior designers are experts in the art of creating mood, from a romantic supper club to a work-efficient office environment. Their canvas is space. Their tools are color, texture, fabric and light, and their task is to create an environment where form and function merge. Interior designers have the ability to shape the way we feel about where we live, work and play.

Learning to become an interior designer begins with a strong foundation. You’ll start with studies in drawing, perspective, proportion, color and basic design. From there, you move on to computer-aided drafting (CAD) to plan residential and commercial space. You also learn the importance of structural safety codes and how they impact your role as an interior designer.

Graduates of this program are prepared for entry-level positions such as assistant designer, facility and space planner, or drafts-person. With experience and the entrepreneurial spirit, you may choose to work on your own or pursue advanced positions such as senior designer or project director.

Method of Instruction
Instructional methods at The Art Institute of California — Orange County include lecture, demonstrations, labs, one-on-one tutorials and periodic examinations. Except for externships and field trips, all instruction is conducted in a classroom setting.
Total Credit Hours: 192
12 Quarters.

The way people communicate is most definitely changing. With the continuing advancements being made in the field of technology, society is moving further and further away from verbal communication. We are living in an increasingly visual world. People have moved from reading and writing to television, film, and the Internet.

Future leaders in the modern world of work will need to be exceptional visual communicators. They will need to be able to interpret many different visual mediums along with being competent and comfortable in using television, film, and the Internet to get their message across successfully.

The individuals who are most skilled in these areas will be the ones who help to develop and expand our understanding of and ability in art, design, and communication. For these reasons and many others, the graphic arts program focuses on understanding and creating clear, effective, and exciting visual forms of communication.

At Mount Marty College, this program combines the arts and emerging technologies into a fresh course of study while maintaining a strong foundation in the liberal arts. Every project requires students to communicate more effectively and grow personally. It has been said that every work of art is actually a self-portrait, and there is a need to understand oneself in order to create effective visual communications. As such, students are helped along a path of personal growth.

The Graphic Arts program follows the standards and guidelines of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) and is specially designed to educate students about the varying means of visual communication. The focus of this program is on communication as the purpose of art and design. Students who have the ability to understand communication, especially in this innovative visual form, will pave the way to develop new and more interesting forms of art, design, and communiqué. Along the path to this understanding, students will learn many valuable and employable technical skills that will help to make them marketable in the world of work.

A unique quality of Mount Marty’s program is the heavy focus on quality studio work compared to other programs. Students take studio courses in design, art, video, and new media. This broad approach allows students to explore many different mediums and become proficient in a variety of fields. The integration of these skills allows students a greater understanding of communication and how to create new and exciting forms of communication.

Students receive quality, hands-on experience with technology and design in a variety of mediums. This program offers students a historical and contemporary study of art, design, and media. By tying all three together, it becomes clear what is on the cutting edge of each group and allows students to see how closely related they truly are. This program is technologically advanced and innovative, which means that it will take our students to the next level of cutting-edge technology.

In keeping with our commitment to provide current technology to all our students, every full-time Mount Marty College student is issued a laptop computer. The use of laptops is integral in all instruction, but especially in the graphic arts program. Students have access to up-to-date software for graphic design such as Illustrator, PhotoShop, AfterFX, Director, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Sound Forge. On our wireless campus, students have the world at their fingertips.

Why Game Art, Why Now

Game art is one of the fastest growing industries today and the demand for qualified designers grows with it. Our Game Art program blends the artistic and technical skills you’ll need to become the kind of creative thinker and problem solver the game art industry is seeking.
What You’ll Learn

Our program educates game artists to be original thinkers and problem solvers, able to integrate history, culture and art into a variety of electronic applications.

We combine core studio courses (drawing, design and sculpture) with liberal studies courses (math, writing, physics, art history, social and behavioral sciences and humanities) to give you a strong foundation and a cultural and historical view of the world.

Industry-standard production software is used to teach you the nuts and bolts of game design, including modeling, motion, texturing, lighting, rigging, leveling, and game, character and story development. You’ll also learn about the gaming industry in general through courses focused on copyright, ethics and portfolio/reel development.

Graduates will be masters of the following skills and abilities:
Technical proficiency in industry standard software and the ability to create work that shows high levels of ability
The ability to develop an engaging game narrative and characters, functional game play and good story telling
Artistic proficiency including knowledge of anatomy and an ability to create realistic environments and atmospheres
Strong design skills
The ability to think critically and evaluate your own work and the work of others
An understanding of the Game Art professional world and the ability to work within it
The ability to integrate a world view into your work
Think creatively and solve problems
Work as a strong member in teams
Communicate, both verbally and in writing

Curriculum

The following course descriptions are for 2008–9.
First Semester Required Courses

Contemporary Issues (seminar): This course engages students with their present environment as the first in our series of history/theory/criticism courses. It investigates the broad topic of material culture by focusing on a selection of theoretical topics and historical case studies from the fields of design, architecture, art, and popular culture. It also engages a notion of interface as a way of viewing the world. With a strong emphasis on structuralist and poststructuralist theory, this seminar is to identify the shifting relationship of cultural codes that come about under the complex interplay of ideology, institutions, and cultural difference.

Design Research (practicum): First in the research and strategy track, this course introduces students to the theory and practice of various types of design research including human-centered qualitative and ethnographic methods as well as formal and analytical techniques. Students will also design imaginative tools to expand understanding of a group of people and/or situated context. Representational methods such as personas and scenarios function to help students see and articulate patterns in qualitative data to inform design. The goal is to provide students with research-based skills and resources to strengthen strategic design practice.

Form Studio: CD (Communication Design) + ID (Industrial Design) + IA (Interaction Design) (studio): Form Studio is the introductory studio class in the graduate design program. This class offers students a strong foundation in the making, assessing, and critiquing of visual materials and begins a discussion that will reverberate through the rest of their studies. Students learn the use and structure of materials and media, and the development of a rigorous and disciplined process through which they can create and analyze what they are creating. Much is made of the relationship between intention and reaction, and the sharpening of an awareness of physiological sensation as an integral part of design development. Ultimately successful students will develop the necessary skills of experimentation, articulate criticism and constructive questioning necessary to generate remarkable work.

Writing (seminar): This is a wide-ranging course that studies creative nonfiction writing. Students gain experience in writing memoir, journal, personal essay, formal essay, feature article, proposal, review, and other creative nonfiction forms. An online writing component gives students experience in writing blogs and other online forms and also assures that each student has established a web page for posting work and writing throughout their course of study. The goal of the course is to make students confident, effective, and interesting writers in all media.
Second Semester Required Courses

Entrepreneurship, Ethics, and Intellectual Property (seminar): Designers should understand the fundamentals of business strategies and economic models to engage their profession in a muscular way. This course introduces students to business models for both for-profit and non-profit constructions as well as individual entrepreneurship. The position of ethics and social responsibility will be studied through case studies and discourse. The rapidly changing landscape of intellectual property—from patent and copyright to open source—will be examined. Students will create speculative business models focused on how they may manifest their professional design goals.

History of Media (seminar): Design is less about giving form than giving meaning: From buildings to newspapers, from surgical instruments to satellites, design creates meaning on multiple levels that shift over time. This course considers design history as the cumulative process of communicating ideas, values, and social practices through a variety of media. We will look at design within the larger landscapes of culture and technology and against the situated contexts of the personal and particular.
Seminar/Studio Pairs (choose one of three)

CD (seminar and studio): “Information” has become the new code word for what is largely an overload of fast-paced images and sound bites, infotainment, and infomercials. Countries, ideologies, religions, artists, preachers, youth, celebrities, and politicians alike are branded and sold to audiences as if they were consumer products. Our analytical goal is to sift through this clutter of logos, slogans, and hidden persuasion in order to unravel some of the contradictions that result from the media-makers’ access to power, knowledge, and financial resources. In the associated studio course, students explore the ideas presented in the seminar context through making. For example, analysis and insights are put to use in the design and making of antidotes, parodies, and other alternative constructions. Likewise, students are called upon to utilize methods of communication and persuasion in formmaking for socially positive ends. Prerequisite: Form Studio.

IA (seminar and studio): This course dives deep into the pragmatics of scripting time-based, interactive multidisciplinary media. With a hard focus on fundamental coding structures and practices, based in concrete problem solving, students will develop the intuitions and know-how necessary for creative authoring. In a critical, collaborative environment students will develop individually motivated projects from conceptualization and modeling, to design and implementation, from analysis to synthesis. Workshops on the elements of sound, moving image, and interaction design will complement reading and discussion of current theory and practice. Prerequisite: Form Studio.

ID (seminar and studio): This course will center generally around the issue of tangible interfaces in the visual and haptic realm. This subject will be addressed broadly and will begin with investigations into both person to object and person to spatial relationships and how they are meaningfully formed. Projects through the semester will increase in scope, culminating in the examination of interpersonal relationships as facilitated through objects and spaces, and utilizing scenario building as a methodological tool in determining how the ecology of artifacts around us can, and do, mediate social interaction. The studio will engage in making artifacts and/or spatial environments to test these scenarios. Readings will cover topics from all aspects of contemporaneity, with an emphasis on semantics and phenomenology. Prerequisite: Form Studio.

Yes, admission to the major is only possible in the fall semester. The applicant must meet all curricular requirements mandated by the university for entering students. Courses in studio art or other creative areas are strong encouraged because they help the student develop creative potential as well as critical judgment.

What courses would I take?

During your first year in the program, you will gain a strong foundation in design principles and graphic communication. You will also concentrate on the Miami Plan, a well-rounded course of study that provides you with an excellent liberal arts education. Through the Miami Plan, you will get a solid base in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, fine arts, and formal reasoning. You meet first-year Miami Plan requirements in interior design by taking a special series of courses offered in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies (Western College Program). These include Creativity and Culture, Social Systems, and Natural Systems.

The second and third years introduce you to history and theory, computer-aided design, human factors, materials, and furniture design. These support the design studio courses that you will be taking. During the summers following these two years, you may pursue for-credit internships and gain practical experience.

Your fourth year becomes more self-directed. In the fall, you will take a comprehensive studio where you undertake a single, semester-long project where you handle all of the phases of a job and bring the project to completion. In the spring semester, you will take a senior thesis studio where you concentrate on a project of your own choosing. This may be a real-life project in conjunction with a firm or a community organization.

What can I do with this major?

Most graduates work in commercial interior design firms, architectural firms, or furniture dealerships. Other graduates choose to pursue careers in facilities management, historic preservation, retail sales, or teaching.

Who can I contact for more information?

For general information about Miami University, please contact:

In all cultures, both ancient and modern, art has been a primary means of interpreting and expressing the human experience. Making art at Knox involves a rigorous investigation into how the visual language organizes thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions into dynamic and expressive visual form.

Knox offers a major in studio art and minors in five specific areas—ceramics, painting, photography, sculpture and printmaking. This allows students of all disciplines the opportunity to complement their primary area of interest with focused study in a media-specific area.

The Program
The major in studio art gives a thorough education in the traditions of twentieth-century drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. In addition to extensive studio courses, the major covers the history of art and its role in contemporary society.

The introductory two-term sequence, called Theory and Techniques of Studio Art, focuses on developing the fundamentals of visual language. The major culminates in Open Studio and the Senior Show, immersing the student in building and exhibiting a body of work.

The minors in ceramics, painting, photography, sculpture and printmaking each have a strong foundation in the basic requirements of an art major, as well as in-depth experiences in one of the department’s program areas, ensuring that each student has a broad understanding of the visual language and is able to articulate visual ideas.

Resources
Knox offers modern, spacious, well-equipped studios and superior art history resources—centralized in the Ford Center for the Fine Arts. Studios have 24-hour access for painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. Individual work areas are available for advanced students. The printmaking studio has numerous presses and a complete range of relief and intaglio equipment. The ceramics studio has four kilns and ample supplies and equipment. Darkrooms available to photography students are located in the Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center.

Knox College Special Collections include the Famulener Collection of prints and drawings by old and modern masters—a valuable resource for all art students. The art department archives house award-winning student work, which is exhibited on a rotating basis throughout the campus.

Gallery in the Ford Center for the Fine Arts

Many art history classes meet in the “Round Room,” designed specifically for art lectures and the viewing of Knox’s collection of more than 20,000 slides.

In addition, the collection of art books in Seymour Library has been carefully built with an eye to current and historical movements.

In all cultures, both ancient and modern, art has been a primary means of interpreting and expressing the human experience. Making art at Knox involves a rigorous investigation into how the visual language organizes thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions into dynamic and expressive visual form.

Knox offers a major in studio art and minors in five specific areas—ceramics, painting, photography, sculpture and printmaking. This allows students of all disciplines the opportunity to complement their primary area of interest with focused study in a media-specific area.

The Program
The major in studio art gives a thorough education in the traditions of twentieth-century drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. In addition to extensive studio courses, the major covers the history of art and its role in contemporary society.

The introductory two-term sequence, called Theory and Techniques of Studio Art, focuses on developing the fundamentals of visual language. The major culminates in Open Studio and the Senior Show, immersing the student in building and exhibiting a body of work.

The minors in ceramics, painting, photography, sculpture and printmaking each have a strong foundation in the basic requirements of an art major, as well as in-depth experiences in one of the department’s program areas, ensuring that each student has a broad understanding of the visual language and is able to articulate visual ideas.

Resources
Knox offers modern, spacious, well-equipped studios and superior art history resources—centralized in the Ford Center for the Fine Arts. Studios have 24-hour access for painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. Individual work areas are available for advanced students. The printmaking studio has numerous presses and a complete range of relief and intaglio equipment. The ceramics studio has four kilns and ample supplies and equipment. Darkrooms available to photography students are located in the Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center.

Knox College Special Collections include the Famulener Collection of prints and drawings by old and modern masters—a valuable resource for all art students. The art department archives house award-winning student work, which is exhibited on a rotating basis throughout the campus.

Gallery in the Ford Center for the Fine Arts

Many art history classes meet in the “Round Room,” designed specifically for art lectures and the viewing of Knox’s collection of more than 20,000 slides.

In addition, the collection of art books in Seymour Library has been carefully built with an eye to current and historical movements.