The Business of Design

ART 418 · Charleston Southern University · Fall 2026. Three credits. Prerequisite: ART 318. Meets Mon and Wed, 1:30 to 2:50 PM in CSU LB 104, August 24 through December 7, 2026.

Taught by Abe Garcia (afgarcia@csuniv.edu).

AI is changing how design gets made, and the profession is still working out what the medium is. This course takes both halves seriously. You learn design practice and process the way the discipline has always taught it: research, iteration, critique, craft. And you learn to make work with AI the way working studios use it now, on real production, with your name on the output.

You carry one project across the whole semester. It starts the way a startup starts: with a real product or technology that has no market yet. You research who could want it, choose an audience, pitch your creative strategy to the room in September, and set the brand's direction out of the October explorations. Then you build the brand, write it down as rules a machine can follow, and use it to make the product's case: a brand book with the product-market fit plan inside it, and a landing page for signup. Along the way we read the people who built the discipline and look at how the best teams and brands are working right now. The field is being redrawn while you are entering it, and you should have a hand in it.

How the course runs

Mon and Wed, 1:30 to 2:50 PM. 28 sessions in two parts.

Part 1, 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 2, 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

The semester project. 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.

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 work

Personal statement, 5 percent, due December 7. Written 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.

Milestone 1: the pitch, 15 percent, due September 21. The 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.

Milestone 2: brand explorations, 15 percent, due October 14. The 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.

Milestone 3: the brand, 25 percent, due November 4. The 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.

Milestone 4: the brand book and the landing page, 25 percent, due December 2. Where 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.

Presentations, 10 percent. Every milestone is presented; the last one runs across the final two class days. Graded across all four.

Participation, 5 percent. Seminar discussion, critique, and the studio check-in. Every work session opens with three minutes on your log, and that is where progress gets graded.

Final versions, December 7 to December 7, 2026. 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. There is no exam-week meeting and nothing is due after the last day. The room has already seen every part of the project.

How work is graded

Every piece of work is graded on four counts, evenly weighted.

Process, 25 percent. Contributing to discussion and critique, and improving the work as a result of research and iteration.

Concept, 25 percent. Responding to the problem inventively, and thinking critically about the work in light of critique and reading.

Resolution, 25 percent. Making work that is effective and appropriate to its concept and its context.

Craft, 25 percent. Care in the manufacture of the work, and technical ability in the making of it.

Books

Required.

- Creative Strategy and the Business of Design — Douglas Davis, HOW Books, 2016 - The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design — Marty Neumeier, New Riders, 2006

Recommended.

- Don't Call It That: A Naming Workbook — Eli Altman, No Picnic Press, 2019

No class

September 7, Labor Day. October 12, Fall Break. November 25, Thanksgiving.

Policies

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 log file in the project repository. The commit history already says what changed; the log says what you decided and what the machine did, which a commit message should not carry. Two lines an entry is fine. It is what the AI note on every milestone is written from, and it is the only proof of progress this course accepts other than the history itself.

Studio days. A work session opens with a stand-up: three minutes each, screen up, the last week of commits 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. Everything you make lives in one repository and you commit at the end of every work session, so the version history is a side effect of working rather than a chore. Decks and boards go in as dated PDF exports, since git will not diff a picture. 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 history is 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.