ART 418 · Charleston Southern University · Fall 2026
The Business of Design
Syllabus · 3 credits · Prerequisite ART 318 · Abe Garcia · afgarcia@csuniv.edu
How the course runs
Mon and Wed, 1:30 to 2:50 PM, CSU LB 104. Aug 24 to Dec 7; finals Dec 8 to Dec 14. 28 sessions in 2 parts.
- Part I · Brand from Business Data
- You take on a product with no market. You find the problem it poses, research who could want it, choose an audience, and build the argument for what you want to make. It closes with the pitch.
- Part II · Brand as Foundation
- The pitch becomes a creative brief, written in class, and the brief drives two weeks of exploration that set the brand's direction. You build the identity, write it down as rules a machine can follow, and use it as the foundation for the go-to-market: the brand book, with the product-market fit plan inside it, and a landing page for signup.
The project
One project across the whole semester. You take a real product or technology that has no market yet and use design to take it toward one. First the strategy and the brand: choose an audience, pitch it, set the directions, build the identity. Then the brand becomes the foundation: the brand book, with the product-market fit plan inside it, and a landing page for signup, all made against the brand's own rules. Four milestones, each presented to the class, and each built through dated checkpoints between them; the full run is on the project page.
You start where a startup starts: with a product or a technology that works, and no customers. Some are offered in class, real ones from biotech, hard tech and software, each with a real problem attached. You can also bring one you found yourself, using the same methods we teach for finding problems. Whatever you pick, enough has to be published about it that a semester of research does not run dry. You are not redesigning the product: you find the people it is for, frame the business problem in design terms, and build the brand and the plan that could sell it.
The brief itself, with the checkpoint run and the rules the project is worked under, is at /course/business-of-design/project.
Assignments
| Assignment | Due | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Personal statementWritten twice. A first pass in the second week, made with AI in the open, and a final one in the last week, after a semester of work has given you something to say. Say what the machine did. | Dec 7 | 5% |
| Personal statement, first passSix hundred words on the work you do and the work you want to be doing, made with AI in the open. Keep the prompts and keep the versions, and hand the statement in with a short note: what the machine wrote, what you cut, what you kept, and where you overruled it. Close on the worlds you already know: they are where your first audiences come from. Turned in on Blackboard. | Aug 31 | Checkpoint |
| Personal statement, finalThe same statement, rewritten in the last week of the semester. What changed in it, what changed you, and which of the two you would rather show someone. Put the August version beside it. The AI note is written the same way it was in August. | Dec 7 | Checkpoint |
| Milestone 1: the pitchThe opening argument, built across September and recorded for September 21: the product, the problem it poses, the audience you chose, and the ideas you want to carry into the brand, as a deck you talk over for ten minutes. Say what the machine did. | Sep 21 | 15% |
| The audienceThree audiences who could want your product, a paragraph each: what problem it would solve for them, what they use today instead, and what that costs them. This is segmentation the way Davis teaches it in chapter 1. Say which one you are leaning to. Turned in on Blackboard. | Sep 9 | Checkpoint |
| The problem statementOne page framing the problem for the audience you are leaning to: who has it and how you know, what it is and what signs show it, why it is worth solving and what it costs unsolved, and where it shows up. Compressed to one statement from the audience's side, with every claim naming a source. Say what the machine did. Turned in on Blackboard. | Sep 14 | Checkpoint |
| The pitch, recordedSubmit your complete ten-minute video pitch: your slides on screen, you in a corner with the camera on, and your voice over them, exported as an MP4. Upload it to the Blackboard assignment before class; if the video will not upload, put a link to it in the submission text. The pitch includes your audience, problem, research, design direction, and next steps in Brown's five sections: objectives and outcomes, the problem elaborated, the design direction, supporting details, and next steps. Include your principles and boards within that presentation. Next steps covers scope, outputs, fidelity, a timeline against the milestone dates, priority, and what the work would cost. The complete video is the submission; no separate PDF or individual worksheets are due with it. | Sep 21 | Checkpoint |
| Milestone 2: brand explorationsThe 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. | Oct 14 | 15% |
| The creative briefThe 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. | Sep 30 | Checkpoint |
| The moodboards, in progressTwo 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. | Oct 7 | Checkpoint |
| The explorationsYour 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. | Oct 14 | Checkpoint |
| Milestone 3: the brandThe brand itself, built as the answer to the brief, and the largest body of work in the semester. At minimum it carries a mark, a palette, the type, the voice, and three applications. Say what the machine did. | Nov 4 | 25% |
| The direction and the first rulesOut of your explorations, commit to one direction for the brand and defend it against the brief: which of its words it answers best, and what the alternatives would have cost. Then start writing it down the same day: the first rules, each named for the decision it came from, go into the repository before you leave. Made in the studio, in the room, so the build and the book start together. | Oct 19 | Checkpoint |
| The rules, written for a machineEvery choice in your brand, written down as a rule someone who has never met you could follow: a person or a machine. The parts with exact values, like colors and type sizes, become data a machine can read; designers call these tokens. The judgment calls, like what the voice sounds like, what the brand refuses to say, and where it says it, stay as plain written instructions. Then hand it all to a model and keep the receipts: what you asked for, what came back, and which rule each failure points at. Started in class on October 21 and built in the repository, not a new document. | Oct 28 | Checkpoint |
| The system, reviewedBy now the machine has been making things under your rules for two weeks, so this is a review, not a rewrite. The whole system laid out: the brand data, the rules, the written instructions, and the skills you have built for the machine, read as one thing. What the runs taught you gets folded in, what drifted gets reconciled, and the rest of class is studio time on the brand, which is presented Wednesday. | Nov 2 | Checkpoint |
| The brandThe built brand, pinned up and argued for. At minimum: a mark, a palette, the type, the voice, and three applications. That is a directed identity, not a finished system; the brand book is where it gets finished. Boards are up before class starts, so the three minutes go to the argument. The deck is rebuilt again and the brief rides in it; where the brand disobeys the brief, say so and defend it. Say what the machine did. | Nov 4 | Checkpoint |
| Milestone 4: the brand book and the landing pageWhere the semester lands: the finished brand book, with the product-market fit plan as its go-to-market chapter, and a landing page for signup, both made from the brand's own rules. Say what the machine did. | Dec 2 | 25% |
| The brand book, draftedThe brand book in draft, holes marked as holes. Three parts. The brand: what it is and who it is for, the mark and how to use it, color with exact values, the type scale, layout and spacing, voice with worked examples, and misuse drawn from real mistakes. How it sells: the audience, the channels, the message in each place, the offer and its price, and the result that would prove people want it. The appendix: every color, type, and spacing value written as data a machine can read. I mark up the draft overnight and it comes back Wednesday. The finished version, page-numbered and free of placeholder text, is due December 2. | Nov 16 | Checkpoint |
| The landing page, first buildThe signup page, first build: the brand's rules driving a real page with one call to action, and what failed on the way. Bring the run that made it: the prompts, the rules, the commits. A first run that fails is normal and useful. | Nov 23 | Checkpoint |
| Presentations, day twoThe second half of the room presents, same format: run the system, show what it made, name what it got wrong. The work was due December 2; nothing new is turned in today. | Dec 7 | Checkpoint |
| The brand book and the landing pageThe close, presented: the finished brand book, its go-to-market chapter included, and the landing page live enough to sign up on, produced with the machine under your rules. A one-page handoff README comes with it: what it is, how to run it, and what it gets wrong. The work is due December 2 for everyone; the room presents across the last two class days, half on December 2 and half on December 7. | Dec 2 | Checkpoint |
| PresentationsEvery milestone is presented, the first one on video; the last one runs across the final two class days. Graded across all four. | All term | 10% |
| ParticipationSeminar discussion, critique, and the studio check-in. From October 19, every work session opens with three minutes on your log, and that is where progress gets graded. | All term | 5% |
| Final versionsEverything 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. | Dec 7 to Dec 7 | |
| Total | 100% |
How work is marked
Every piece of work is marked on four counts, evenly weighted.
- 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.
Books
Read in selections, never whole. Each session lists what to read before that class.
- Required
- Creative Strategy and the Business of Design. Douglas Davis, HOW Books, 2016. ISBN 9781440341557.
- Required
- The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design. Marty Neumeier, New Riders, 2006. ISBN 9780321348104.
- Required
- The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes. Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, McGraw-Hill, 2001. ISBN 9780071364157. Chapters 1 and 2, and the opening of chapter 16.
- Recommended
- Don't Call It That: A Naming Workbook. Eli Altman, No Picnic Press, 2019. ISBN 9781734248302.
No class
- Sep 7
- Labor Day. The university is closed; the ledger skips the day.
- Oct 12
- Fall Break. The university is closed; the ledger skips the day.
- Nov 25
- Thanksgiving. The university is closed; the ledger skips the day.
The rules
- Readings
- You read selections, not whole books. Each session lists what to read before that class, and readings are handed out the meeting before.
- The log
- Keep a short running log of what you decided and what the machine did. Two lines a work session is fine. From October 19 it is a file in your project repository. It is what the AI note on every checkpoint and milestone is written from.
- Studio days
- A work session opens with a stand-up: three minutes each, screen up, what you have made since the last one, and from October 19 your repository and your log. Say what moved since the last one, what is stuck, and what you will have done by the next. Then the room is yours to work in and I am in it. Missing the stand-up is missing the class, whatever time you arrive.
- Revision
- Nothing in this course is turned in once. You turn each version in on Blackboard, as a dated PDF for decks and boards. From October 19 the work also lives in your project repository, and you commit at the end of every work session, so the earlier versions are kept for you. When a piece comes back to the room, the previous version goes up before the new one with a line on what changed and what made you change it. Process is a quarter of every grade here, and the earlier versions are how it gets seen.
- Late work
- Work is due when the session says it is due. A missed checkpoint is not made up later; the next one is already asking for the thing after it. A milestone handed in late loses a letter, and a milestone more than a week late is a zero. Tell me before the deadline rather than after it and we can usually find a date that works; tell me after and we cannot.
- AI use
- Use AI on anything in this course. Disclose it every time: each checkpoint and milestone names the tools you used and what they did, even when the answer is none, and that note is written out of your log. You defend everything you turn in as your own decision, and an error the machine made that you submitted is your error. Use whichever tools you want. Every assignment can be done on free tiers, and no grade in this course requires a paid model. Do not feed confidential material about a real organization to a public model; work from what the company behind your product has already published. Turning in AI work without saying so is misrepresenting the work, and it is handled the way plagiarism is.
- Academic integrity
- Academic dishonesty is a grade of FD, failure due to academic dishonesty, and may carry further discipline; the Student Handbook has the definition and the appeal. You may not hand in a project made for another class, including one adjusted for this one. Disclosed AI use is not dishonesty here; undisclosed AI use is, and is handled the same way.
- Accessibility
- Charleston Southern University will provide reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities to make all learning experiences accessible. If you feel you may need accommodations based on the impact of a disability, please contact the Office of Accessibility Services located in The Hub (2nd floor of the library; 843-863-7159, awatson@csuniv.edu) to initiate a conversation about your options. Accommodations are not retroactive, so please avoid delays.
- Nondiscrimination
- Charleston Southern University does not illegally discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, age, religion, genetic information, veteran or military status, or any other basis. Inquiries go to the Title IX Coordinator at 843-863-7374. The Student Handbook carries your rights and remedies in full.
- Title IX
- The university prohibits sex and gender-based discrimination and harassment, sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and stalking, and it prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or recovery from either. Pregnant and parenting students can arrange accommodations through the Title IX Coordinator. Faculty are responsible employees: anything disclosed to me on these matters goes to the Title IX Coordinator, who provides support and resources and keeps it private. That is Shannon Morrison, with Justin Brown as deputy, at titleix@csuniv.edu. The university's Title IX page carries the procedures, the anonymous reporting form, and the rest of the support available.
- Attendance
- Attendance is tracked. University policy R-10 fails a student who misses a quarter of the meetings. In this course that is seven.
- Grades of record
- Grades live in Blackboard, the university's system of record. This site carries the schedule, the readings, and your notes.
Time each week
- A meeting
- 80 minutes, 75 of them usable.
- Reading
- Up to 90 minutes a week, and each week's readings are counted against that.