Assignments

The project

The semester project runs the whole term and is collected in the checkpoints below.

One project across the whole term. 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.

Due dates

• August1 due
• Personal statement, first passCheckpoint for Personal statementSix 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.Due Mon Aug 31
• September4 due
• The audienceCheckpoint for Milestone 1Three 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.Due Wed Sep 9
• The problem statementCheckpoint for Milestone 1One 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, not presented.Due Mon Sep 14
• The pitch and proposalCheckpoint for Milestone 1Three minutes standing with your deck, plus the one-page proposal that carries the detail: deliverables, a timeline against the milestone dates, and what the work would cost. The pitch is the argument; the proposal is what a client would sign.Due Mon Sep 21
• The creative briefCheckpoint for Milestone 2The pitch, distilled in class to a two-page creative brief that answers Davis's eleven questions: the client, the budget, the date, the target, the business problem, and what the work has to do. Written in the first half of the session so exploration starts the same day. This is the document the brand answers to for the rest of the term.Due Wed Sep 30
• October4 due
• The explorations, in progressCheckpoint for Milestone 2The moodboard, the brand themes, and the brand language as they stand, pinned up and worked in the room: the images and references on the board, the themes emerging from them, and the first words the brand might use. None of it is graded on polish; it is there so the exploration happens in the open instead of the night before the critique.Due Wed Oct 7
• The explorationsCheckpoint for Milestone 2Moodboard, brand themes, and brand language, with the research behind them and your recommendations. Images, references, adjacent brands, and analogous technologies, each one tied to the business problem it helps solve, and the recommendations saying where the brand should go and why: the foundation for the product's development and its market fit. Added to the deck as a section and presented in three minutes, last version up first.Due Wed Oct 14
• The direction and the first rulesCheckpoint for Milestone 3Out 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.Due Mon Oct 19
• The rules, written for a machineCheckpoint for Milestone 3Every 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.Due Wed Oct 28
• November4 due
• The system, reviewedCheckpoint for Milestone 3By now the machine has been making things under your rules for two weeks, so this is a review, not a rewrite. The whole system on the desk: 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.Due Mon Nov 2
• The brandCheckpoint for Milestone 3The 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.Due Wed Nov 4
• The brand book, draftedCheckpoint for Milestone 4The 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.Due Mon Nov 16
• The landing page, first buildCheckpoint for Milestone 4The 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.Due Mon Nov 23
• December3 due
• The brand book and the landing pageCheckpoint for Milestone 4The 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.Due Wed Dec 2
• Presentations, day twoCheckpoint for Milestone 4The 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.Due Mon Dec 7
• Personal statement, finalCheckpoint for Personal statementThe same statement, rewritten in the last week of the term. What changed in it, what changed you, and which of the two you would rather show someone. The August version is in the history, so put the two side by side. The AI note is written the same way it was in August.Due Mon Dec 7

What each piece is worth

• 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.5%
• Milestone 1: the pitchThe opening argument, built across September and presented standing on 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 with a one-page proposal behind it. Say what the machine did.15%
• Milestone 2: brand explorationsThe pitch distilled to a creative brief in class, then two weeks of open exploration: a moodboard, the brand themes, and the brand language, with the research behind them and recommendations rooted in the business problem. Say what the machine did.15%
• Milestone 3: the brandThe brand itself, built as the answer to the brief, and the largest body of work in the term. At minimum it carries a mark, a palette, the type, the voice, and three applications. Say what the machine did.25%
• Milestone 4: the brand book and the landing pageWhere the term 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.25%
• PresentationsEvery milestone is presented; the last one runs across the final two class days. Graded across all four.10%
• ParticipationSeminar discussion, critique, and the studio check-in. Every work session opens with three minutes on your log, and that is where progress gets graded.5%