Sessions28
  1. Part IBrand from Business Data
  2. 01Mon Aug 24Kickoff and Introductions
  3. 02Wed Aug 26Design Practice and Process
  4. 03Mon Aug 31Version Control, and Design Practice in the Age of New Mediums
  5. 04Wed Sep 2Discovery Workshop
  6. Sep 7No class
  7. 05Wed Sep 9The Process So Far
  8. 06Mon Sep 14Pitch Studio
  9. 07Wed Sep 16Pitch Studio: the recording
  10. 08Mon Sep 21Should designers design?
  11. Part IIBrand as Foundation
  12. 09Wed Sep 23Process: Definition
  13. 10Mon Sep 28Brand: Storytelling
  14. 11Wed Sep 30Creative Brief Studio
  15. 12Mon Oct 5Aesthetics and the Moodboard
  16. 13Wed Oct 7Standing Apart
  17. Oct 12No class
  18. 14Wed Oct 14Milestone 2: brand explorations
  19. 15Mon Oct 19Design Systems
  20. 16Wed Oct 21Brand Systems: Tokens and Rules
  21. 17Mon Oct 26Brand Systems: Voice and Language
  22. 18Wed Oct 28Testing the System with AI
  23. 19Mon Nov 2System Review Studio
  24. 20Wed Nov 4Milestone 3: the brand, presented
  25. 21Mon Nov 9Design for Meaning: Storytelling, Mythology, and Meaning
  26. 22Wed Nov 11Product-Market Fit
  27. 23Mon Nov 16Brand Book Studio
  28. 24Wed Nov 18Build Session 1
  29. 25Mon Nov 23Guest speaker, to be announced
  30. Nov 25No class
  31. 26Mon Nov 30Build Session 2
  32. 27Wed Dec 2Milestone 4: the brand book and the landing page
  33. 28Mon Dec 7Milestone 4, day two, and Wrap-Up

ART 418 · Charleston Southern University · Fall 2026

Milestone 2: brand explorations

The pitch distilled to a creative brief in class, then two weeks of exploration: at least three moodboards, with the research behind them, presented in your updated pitch deck. Say what the machine did.

The run

Every due date is a class day. Work is turned in on Blackboard, presented in class, or both. The late-work policy is in the syllabus.

Milestone 2: brand explorations

15% of the grade · 3 milestones

The pitch distilled to a creative brief in class, then two weeks of exploration: at least three moodboards, with the research behind them, presented in your updated pitch deck. Say what the machine did.

  1. MonSep 7no class

    Labor Day

  2. WedSep 30checkpoint, in class

    The creative brief

    The pitch, distilled to the creative brief: the nineteen sections from the Sep 28 class, from the problem and the insight to what gets built. Every section needs an answer; length is up to you. Written in class. Turned in on Blackboard as a PDF, or as a link to a shared document. Not graded on its own: it counts toward Milestone 2, and a missed checkpoint is not made up. This is the document the brand answers to for the rest of the semester.

  3. WedOct 7checkpoint

    The moodboards, in progress

    Two or three moodboards as they stand, in one PDF on Blackboard by 1:30, and on the screen at the start of class. None of it is graded on polish. It is there so the exploration happens in the open, and not the night before the presentations.

  4. MonOct 12no class

    Fall Break

  5. WedOct 14milestone, presented

    The explorations

    Your pitch deck, updated and presented again in class. Add what you have learned since the pitch and the creative brief, then at least three moodboards, and talk through each one: what it is for and where the brand could go. Three minutes, latest version up first. Say what the machine did.

Final versions

no weight of its own

Everything is due by the end of the last class, December 7: the final versions of the brand book, the landing page, and the personal statement, in the repository and turned in on Blackboard. There is no exam-week meeting and nothing is due after the last day. The room has already seen every part of the project.

  1. Dec 7

    The last class

    What is in the repository at the end of class is what is graded.

Finding the audience

Your personal statement points at the audiences you already know. Bring three candidates, each found in one of these four places, due Sep 9.

A world you know
A craft, a job you have held, a subject you are inside. You already know what the people in it buy and what they complain about.
Your community
A group or place you belong to. You can ask people directly what they need.
Yourself
You would use this product if someone sold it to you right. The risk is that you are the only one; the research will tell you.
A wild card
An audience that simply interests you. Held to the same evidence as the other three.

Problem framing

Problem framing is discovering and defining a problem your audience shares. It comes from design thinking, which puts people at the center of the work. Skip it and nobody can see what your product is for. Answer four questions, then compress the answers into one statement.

Who
Who has the problem, and how do you know?
What
What is the problem, and what signs show it?
Why
Why solve it, and what does it cost unsolved?
Where
In what circumstances does it show up?

Your problem statement is the four answers written as one short statement from the audience's side, due Sep 14.

The creative brief distills what the pitch settled: the client, the budget, the date, the audience, and the business problem. It is the reference every later phase answers to.

The deck

You prepare and present a deck of your research and initial insights: nine slides, three minutes.

  1. 01

    Cover

    The subject, one line saying what it is, your name and the date. No version number; the repository tracks versions.

  2. 02

    The product

    What it is and what it can do, compressed out of your problem statement. One slide. The source is on it.

  3. 03

    The audience

    Specific people, named the way you would name them to a client. Not a demographic bracket.

  4. 04

    The problem

    One sentence, set large, alone on the slide. If it needs a second sentence it is two problems.

  5. 05

    The evidence

    What you actually found, sourced. This slide decides whether the problem is real.

  6. 06

    What they buy today

    What the audience uses instead, and what those choices cost them.

  7. 07

    The four questions

    Who, what, why, and where, answered short. This is where a bad problem gets caught early.

  8. 08

    What you do not know

    The open questions, written down as questions. Every honest deck has some.

  9. 09

    What the machine did

    The three lines. Same format as everything else you hand in.

How you show your work

The work lives in one repository, with a running log of what you decided and what the machine did. How to set both up, and what a good entry looks like, gets its own note early in the term.

The stand-up
Work sessions open with three minutes each, screen up: what moved, what is stuck, what you will have done by next time. Participation is graded here. The rest of the session is yours to work in, with me in the room.
Say what moved
When a piece is re-presented, one line on what changed and why: critique, evidence, or the machine.
What the machine did
Three lines closing every piece you hand in: the tools you used by name; what you asked for and what came back; what you changed, cut or overruled. "None" is a complete answer.
The rule under all of it
Use AI on anything in this course, and defend everything you turn in as your own decision. Check every fact a model gives you; when one fails in the room, the error is yours.

How it is graded

Every piece of work is graded on the same four counts, each a quarter of that piece's grade. Participation and presentations are graded on their own; their weights, and each milestone's, are in the syllabus.

Process · 25%
Contributing to discussion and critique, and improving the work as a result of research and iteration.
Concept · 25%
Responding to the problem inventively, and thinking critically about the work in light of critique and reading.
Resolution · 25%
Making work that is effective and appropriate to its concept and its context.
Craft · 25%
Care in the manufacture of the work, and technical ability in the making of it.
0:00–0:00