MDes Brand Design and Strategy Curriculum
Term 1 Fall
MBDS-800-01
MDes Branding Studio 1
Students will develop strategic models and concepts for a global brand in this course. This includes working with the process of brand and design strategy to mastering the art of design proposals. We will articulate the vision applying a strategic brand and design framework with concrete examples demonstrating the understanding of branding and innovation strategy principles. In short, we make an idea real.
Students will explore and create with Brand Building in this course by analyzing internal and external audits, competition, features, and benefits analysis. We will investigate and synthesize research materials, review the business objectives of the brand plan, determine strategic options, design the identity and application to the 360 brand touchpoint, and execute brand and marketing integration.
MBDS-810-01
MDes Design Research and Strategy
This course explores understanding the use of research and observations. We explore and learn how to recognize insights and opportunities by exploring various research models into human behaviors, trends, and societal shifts in defining viable strategies.
In Design Research and Strategy, we will investigate and model:
Measure and evaluate information
Conduct primary and secondary research
Analyze and synthesize the findings of the brand
Measure effectiveness and insights
Evaluate consumer and audience insights
Observe consumer journeys, articulate your research through design
Create persuasive and compelling presentations in multiple formats.
MBDS-820-01
MDes Business and Branding
The Business of Branding: Why one cannot exist without the other and reinforce the financial implications of executing on the plan.
We will examine key business drivers, consumer desire, rational vs. emotional benefits, and the bottom line. Evaluate the importance of HR, IT, Marketing, Sales, Operations, and R&D. Leverage internal business teams to effectively work with key stakeholders. Influence and persuade. Sell an idea effectively to critical stakeholders that affect change and show a financial impact. Track design business implications for building credibility as a design leader. Evaluate a business problem and identify appropriate analytic techniques to apply. Demonstrate the use of tools for visualizing data from the analysis techniques learned in the course.
MBDS-830-01
MDes Brand Seminar 1
Learning through the eyes of Chief Creative Officers and the lessons they learned through hard-fought business and design strategies that worked and or failed.
Manage brands with internal and external partners and stakeholders at a global level. Innovate design-led organizations. Process methodologies & research. Practice gut/intuitive methodology. Encourage fearless leadership. Analyze case studies (CCO-led).
MBDS-840-01
MDes Writing for Brand
Articulating the Brand Message through Words & Visual. Writing and visualizing effectively for your brand’s audience to help clarify the positioning, the message, and personality.
Tie the messaging strategy with the brand. Write content for traditional and non-traditional media for a global market. Think like a screenwriter in storytelling for an internal and external audience. Name methodologies, naming systems, products, and services to communicate the brand promise and message. Understand different components of a compelling visual and verbal communications strategy.
MBDS-850-01
MDes Branding and Design History
Learning from the pioneers of communication design: Past, Present, and Future. Understand the history of branding by learning from the pioneers of communication design. Learn of the origin of branding:
"Ancient Greece to 18th-century porcelain.
The rise of identity and brand communication in the first and second industrial revolutions.
European modernism and mass-market branding.
Understand American corporate identity 1940–1980.
The rise of the “personal” brand with social media
MBDS-860-01
MDes Branding Lab 1
Students will participate in shared graduate seminars, guest speakers, workshops, and professional mentorship.
Term 2 Spring
MBDS-900-01
MDes Branding Studio 2
Continuing work from MDes Branding Studio 1, we work with global branding strategies including an understanding of the cultural context in local, regional, and global markets. This requires a deep understanding of the cultural landscape and the ability to explore local and regional community influences.
The course also examines regional and sociological understanding of the cultural meaning of a brand. We will manage strategies for social, political, environmental issues, and design and execute a set of deliverables on our findings.
MBDS-910-01
MDes Brand/Culture/Anthropology
As human beings, we form tribes. These can be racial, regional, cultural, familial, or socio-economic. In MDes Brand/Culture/Anthropology we examine Consumer insights, society, tribes, and ethics including cultural appropriation and diversity.
Students will plan research projects, data collection, and analysis of individuals, groups, and mass behaviors. From these findings, the student can leverage consumer psychology and surgically precise messaging. We will analyze strategic insights of consumers and their behaviors, evaluate consumer understanding, and explore insights about individual user journeys & societal shifts.
Finally, we create dynamic and relevant insight documents to build personas and consumer briefs.
MBDS-920-01
MDes Systemic Thinking
Research, strategy, and an excellent communication concept can only succeed if it is embraced internally. In this course, we investigate how to influence and create the culture for a brand: its purpose and meaning within the organization. We will develop brand rollout systems and the onboarding of individuals, teams, and external partners by creating simple systems through the use of technologies that noncreatives can follow and implement the brand culture. We will also design fixed, flexible, and “open” systems to work with and inspire creative innovations within the organization and its partners. Students will explore types of systems that can be utilized for effective use and brand governance: build and leverage brand ambassadors/team for guidance. The course also incorporates new technology and artificial intelligence brand systems.
MBDS-930-01
MDes Brand Seminar 2
This course is centered on Brand Leadership. Analyzing internal and external brand alignment for global business initiatives of products and services is critical. Students also identify common leadership and managerial challenges throughout the organizational life cycle (pre-launch to maturity).
Align internal and external integration strategies
Understand global brand portfolio
Analyze global brands
Manage not invented here strategies
Explore corporate and Startup thinking
Explore team formation, development, and growth
MBDS-940-01
MDes Branding Futures
How will brands live in future landscapes and how might we communicate in this space? Here we design transmedia brand tactics and strategies for new platforms, societal, and technological shifts.
Understand brand communications and consumer touchpoints platforms in a transmedia world
Explore the digital landscape and its impact on brands
Analyze big data, algorithms, and machine learning
Understand social media content and brand influencers
Analyze augmented and virtual reality experience
Design with and for AI systems - how might this change the industry and how to leverage
Discuss - could we, should we, and why implications for good or evil.
MBDS-960-01
Branding Lab 2
|Students will participate in shared graduate seminars, guest speaker series, workshops, and professional mentorship.
Term 3 Summer
MBDS-990-01
MDes Capstone Project
The Capstone project will execute a global brand initiative. This project may be self-initiated or paired with an external project or organization. The student will create a high-level presentation of deliverables articulating the vision through the application of a strategic brand and design framework with concrete examples demonstrating the understanding of branding and innovation strategy principles through the execution of the vision.
1. Virtual presentation space.
2. Presentation deck.
3. Research models.
4. Insights and opportunities.
5. Brand strategy.
6. Design strategy.
7. Strategic roadmap.
8. Leadership plan.
9. Management and roll out plan
10. Design solutions.
MBDS-995-01
MDes Branding Lab 3
Students will participate in shared graduate seminars, guest speaker series, workshops, and professional mentorship.
Please note: curriculum and course names and descriptions may have minimal changes.
On campus facilities
MDes Student Access
While the MDes Brand Design and Strategy program is 100% online, as part of the ArtCenter community, students are invited to take advantage of physical resources. Future developments will be “Hubs” in multiple cities for guest lectures, group activities, and alumni gatherings.
Graduation and Grad Show
MDes students are included in the graduation ceremony either physically, or via online communication. MDes students are also included in the Online Recruitment Grad Show managed by the Center for Professional Development with connections to many of the leading corporations and agencies globally.
https://gradshow.artcenter.edu/spring-2021/graphic-design
Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography [HMCT]
The mission of the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography [HMCT] is to set the global standard of excellence in typography and design education; provide a valuable service to the educational and professional communities as well as the public, reinforcing the meaning and value of typography; elevate and advance the teaching and understanding of both letterform design and typographic practice; and honor the past while also anticipating the future of typography in print, digital, and emerging media.
HMCT serves as an educational and professional forum, a design laboratory, a research center, and an archive, and a meeting place for learning, discussion, and the exchange of ideas and skills. HMCT holds workshops and special classes, symposia, lectures, exhibitions, and residency programs dedicated to all aspects of the typographic field.
The HMTC was established to honor the legacy of ArtCenter professor Leah Toby Hoffmitz Milken, a dedicated educator, and renowned letterform designer and typographer. It was created to be a home and a catalyst for the advancement of typography and letterform design.
Archetype Press
Archetype Press at South Campus is a unique creative resource for students and the community that continues the tradition of letterpress printing technology. The 3,500-square-foot facility, established in 1989, includes eight Vandercook proof presses, a Chandler & Price platen press, a Heidelberg Windmill press, and 2,400-plus drawers of rare American and European metal foundry type, wood type, and ornaments, possibly the largest such collection of any design school.
Technical Skill Center
The Shops are the creative heart of the Art Center and consist of the Model Shop, Paint Booths, Rapid Prototyping, Metal Shop, CNC, Laser, Plaster room, Sanding room, Composite Lab and the Tool Crib. Students from all departments may get trained to use the Shops and have access to professional instructors, quality modeling facilities, and cutting-edge tools and technology to acquire expert skills.
The work areas in The Shops are equipped with the latest professional equipment required to complete projects in woodworking, metal fabrication, vacuum forming, plastic sheet fabrication, and fiberglass and composite fabrication. There are dedicated facilities for sanding and buffing, rubber-mold making, plastic casting, sandblasting, spray-painting and plaster fabrication.
All Art Center students, with approved projects, have access to the latest in rapid prototyping technologies in our 3D prototyping shops, including various types of 3D printers, mills, and routers. Laser cutters are also available to cut or etch plastic, wood, or composites for a wide range of projects. The Shops also feature a well-stocked tool and equipment checkout area and a retail material sales area, making it easy to finish projects without driving to home supply centers.
Printmaking Studio
Art Center’s printmaking facilities enable students to explore intaglio, screen printing, stone and plate lithography, and various photographic printmaking techniques. The 3,000 square-foot Printmaking Studio houses a press room, etching room, darkroom, and storage and office space.
James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library
The Library serves as an informal, collaborative learning environment, where students gather to do research, work on projects, and study, supported by librarians offering research assistance.
The Library offers a comprehensive collection of resources on art and design, including over 86,000 books chosen for the practicing designer and artist; online resources in dozens of design disciplines including color forecasting, materials, business, entertainment, photography, and fine arts; 8,000 films on DVD and other cinema formats; and high-resolution visual images. Limited and signed editions, portfolios, and pop-up books can be found in the Rare Book Room. Subscriptions are maintained for more than 400 magazines, while Web-based subscriptions provide thousands of magazine articles access. Macintosh computers offer wireless Internet access and e-mail.
The Library also oversees the Art Center’s history in the College Archives in Room 202A. With more than half a million volumes, the library at nearby Occidental College serves as another resource for Art Center students.
Color, Materials, and Trends Exploration Laboratory
To provide artists and designers with the resources to become better problem solvers, innovators, storytellers, and leaders, Art Center has developed an innovative program to provide expanded resources and expertise in color and materials technologies and understanding global trends. Supported by funding from Nokia and Avery Dennison, CMTEL hosts various events, lectures, and courses on topics such as sustainable design, trend forecasting, lighting technologies, and more.
Computer Labs
Art Center’s computer facilities are constantly evolving, as are the various ways users interact with these spaces. The College provides a variety of campus computing options, including free wireless access. With an eye on the future, Art Center’s model for classroom computing is becoming more mobile and ubiquitous to accommodate design education in the digital age.
Digital Imaging Lab
Workstations for high-resolution scanning, digital printing from desktop to wide format, and manipulation are available. A film recorder enables digital files to be output as black-and-white or color film in any format up to 4″ x 5″.
Copy Services
The Copy Center offers large format, color laser, and inkjet output from digital files. Color copying is also available. Self-serve, black-and-white copy machines are available for student use at both campuses.
Link to artcenter.edu facilities
http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/campus/resources.jsp