SESSION 01
08.24.26

The Business of Design
What this course is, and how it runs.

Workhorse Collective

NameAbraham GarciaEmailabe@wrkhrs.co

ART 418 · Fall 2026

MeetsMon + Wed, 1:30 to 2:50TodaySession 01 · 08.24.2026
Workhorse meaninglayer.com/course/business-of-design

Today.

Part
What
You leave with
1
Introductions. Your name, what you design, and one brand you can't stop noticing.
The names in the room
2
Who is teaching this. What I do outside this room, and why I teach this course.
Who to ask, and how to reach me
3
What the course is about. Why people buy what a product means, and where design comes in.
The idea the whole semester rests on
4
The project. One product, carried through the whole semester in two parts.
What you will make by December
5
The semester map. Four milestones and the checkpoints between them.
Every date that matters
6
How it runs. Grading, AI, studio days, and revisions.
The rules, in plain words
7
The studio's work. Four projects, and what each one has to do with yours.
A picture of where this work leads
8
Before Wednesday. Two readings.
What to do next
Abraham Garcia
Abraham Garcia, your instructor. abe@wrkhrs.co
Your instructor · Adjunct Professor of Graphic Design

I'm a designer, creative director, and educator, based in Charleston.

I've led Workhorse, a design studio in Washington, D.C., since 2014. My work crosses brand, product, and engineering. Over the past few years I've rebuilt the studio's process around AI, with Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor in daily use.

The studio
Brand identity, websites, products, and exhibitions, for clients like PBS Kids, DC Public Library, and the DC/DOX film festival.
Teaching
MICA and George Mason, and now Charleston Southern.
Meaning Layer
My research library on design and meaning. Many of this course's readings come from it.
What the course is about

People buy a product for what it means to them, as well as for what it does.

Two bottles can hold the same water and sell for very different prices. The difference is what each one says about the person carrying it.
A brand is how a company decides what its product means, and then shows it: in a name, a look, a voice, and a promise.
Making that decision, and making it visible, is the business of design. This semester you make it for one product.

You carry one project through the whole semester.It starts the way a startup starts: with a product or a technology that works, and no customers yet.

Pick a productSome are offered in class, real ones from biotech, hard tech, and software, each with a real problem attached. You can bring your own, as long as enough has been published about it to research for a whole semester.
Find its peopleYou don't redesign the product. You find the people it is for, and you describe the business problem in design terms.
Make its caseYou build the brand, write it down as rules an AI tool can follow, and make the brand book and the landing page that could sell it.

The semester has two parts.

Part 1 · Aug 24 to Sept 21
Brand from business data

You take on a product with no market. You find the problem it poses, research who could want it, and choose an audience. Then you build the argument for what you want to make.

Part 1 ends with the pitch, which you record on video and turn in on September 21.

Part 2 · Sept 23 to Dec 7
Brand as foundation

The pitch becomes a creative brief, written in class. The brief drives two weeks of exploration that set the brand's direction. Then you build the identity and write it down as rules a machine can follow.

The brand becomes the foundation for selling the product: a brand book with the plan for finding its market inside it, and a landing page where people can sign up.

The semester map

Four milestones, and the checkpoints that lead to each one.

Mon Sept 21Milestone 1: the pitch, recorded
Wed Oct 14Milestone 2: the brand explorations
Wed Nov 4Milestone 3: the brand
Wed Dec 2Milestone 4: the brand book and landing page
TodayThe course begins
Wed Sept 9The audience
Wed Sept 30The creative brief
Wed Oct 28The rules, written for a machine
Mon Dec 7, last classFinal versions of everything, and the personal statement
Mon Aug 31The personal statement, first pass
Mon Sept 14The problem statement
Mon Oct 19The direction and the first rules
Mon Nov 16The brand book, drafted
Mon Sept 7No class, Labor Day
Mon Oct 12No class, fall break
Wed Nov 25No class, Thanksgiving
Milestones are presented to the room and graded. Checkpoints are the smaller steps on the way to each one. Nothing is due after the last class.

How your grade is made.

What
When
Weight
Milestone 1 · the pitch
Sept 21
15%
Milestone 2 · the brand explorations
Oct 14
15%
Milestone 3 · the brand
Nov 4
25%
Milestone 4 · the brand book and the landing page
Dec 2
25%
Presentations · every milestone, the first one on video
All semester
10%
Personal statement · written twice
Aug 31 and Dec 7
5%
Participation · discussion, critique, and the stand-up
All semester
5%

Every milestone is graded on the same four things.Each one is a quarter of the grade, so how you got there counts as much as how it looks.

25%ProcessYou take part in discussion and critique, and the work gets better because of your research and your revisions.
25%ConceptYou answer the problem in a way that is your own, and you think hard about the work in light of critique and the readings.
25%ResolutionThe work does its job, and it fits its idea and the place it will live.
25%CraftThe work is made with care, and with real technical skill.
AI in this course

You can use AI on anything in this course, and you say what it did every time.

Write it down. Keep a short log of what you decided and what the machine did. Two lines a work session is enough.
Say it. Every checkpoint and milestone names the tools you used and what they did, even when the answer is none.
Own it. You defend everything you turn in as your own decision. If the machine made a mistake and you turned it in, the mistake is yours.
Free is enough. Every assignment can be done on free tools. Don't put a real organization's private material into one.

How class runs.

What
How it works
Studio days
Work sessions open with a stand-up. Each of you takes three minutes, with your screen up, to say what you made since the last one, what is stuck, and what you will have done by the next.
Revisions
Nothing is turned in only once. Each version goes on Blackboard as a dated PDF, and when a piece comes back to the room, the earlier version goes up first.
Late work
A missed checkpoint isn't made up later. A milestone turned in late loses a letter grade, and one that comes in more than a week late gets a zero. If you tell me before the deadline, we can usually find a date that works.
Attendance
Missing a quarter of the classes fails the course under university policy. In this course, that is seven classes.
The studio's work

Four projects from Workhorseand what each one has to do with yours.

Workhorse
Project
Neurogazer
What we made
Brand strategy
Identity
Website
A neuroscience company building AI and MRI tools to treat brain disorders. We designed the first brand, the marketing site, and a prototype patient platform. Like your project, it started as a technology without an audience.
Workhorse
Project
DC/DOX Film Festival
What we made
Brand strategy
Identity
Posters and signs
Website and social
Washington's documentary film festival. Brand identity, a design system, and the web, print, and motion work that runs on it.
Workhorse
Project
Epic Curing
What we made
Brand strategy
Identity
Packaging
Photography
A D.C. cured meats brand, heritage meets modern. Black-label packaging and a no-frills tagline.
Workhorse
Project · In progress
The Resume Place
What we made
Brand system
Books
Website
The first federal resume writing service. They hired us to give fifty years of authority a system: identity, program marks, a rebuilt website, and campaigns. All of it follows one written set of design rules, like the ones you write in October.

Before Wednesday.

Read
What it is
Due
Lorraine Wild, "That Was Then, and This Is Now: But What Is Next?"
A short essay on what designers kept and what they lost the last time a new tool changed the field, and why knowing where your habits came from is useful. 8 pages.
Wed Aug 26
Douglas Davis, Creative Strategy and the Business of Design
The foreword, and chapter 1 through the section on segmentation. Read chapter 1 closely. About 20 pages.
Wed Aug 26
WEDNESDAY: THE PROJECT IS ASSIGNED · MON AUG 31: THE PERSONAL STATEMENT, FIRST PASS · NO CLASS SEPT 7 Workhorse
Close

This semester you decide what one product means, and you show it.See you Wednesday.