Cal Poly SLO

With so many different platforms on which audiences are able to view websites, it’s important for aspiring web designers to consider how to create responsive and accessible websites. In this course, students will use a variety of web development production tools and processes, following the best practices in the industry, to build websites that can be used for as many people as possible, using as many devices as possible without modification.

In this course, students interested in designing a brand will get a chance to use programs like Adobe Creative to translate their big branding ideas into a physical product that will entice consumers to engage with their new brand.

Aspiring brand designers will learn how to compose a style guide for their new brand.

Once the brand has been conceived and designed, students will get to work printing, converting, and finishing their design to make into something tangible that their target consumers will get to interact with in the marketplace.

Throughout this course, students will learn how to recognize elements associated with a brand’s graphical and physical parts, think Nike’s swoosh, Supreme’s red rectangular logo, and McDonald’s golden arches.

Are you interested in the impact and design of digital public relations and advertising storytelling? From video commercials, content marketing, social media advertising, influencer marketing, to billboards and sponsorships — advertising and public relations messages are everywhere! This course is designed to provide students with an understanding about the marketplace of attention and create effective narratives of their own creation. Students will be exposed to higher level thinking as media consumers and have the opportunity to test their theories by designing and producing a strategic communications campaign, a video commercial, and social media content for a fictional client.

Are you interested in learning how you can make an impact in the world? Are you considering a career that is focused on creating a more compassionate, equitable, inclusive, and less violent world? This course is focused on Women, Gender and Queer studies, social justice and the multitude of professions within the Liberal Arts and Humanities discipline.

Through writing assignments, class discussions and a final group presentation, students will explore and engage with concepts that encourage critical thinking about identities, diversity, equity and a vision for a world aimed at reducing, preventing and eliminating harm.

This course is THE course for any student who is interested in starting their own online business. In this course students will learn how to create a campaign to market products in any industry of their choosing. In this marketing bootcamp, students will cover all of the core concepts of marketing. They will begin with the creative process (ideation), discuss all of the various distribution channels to market their product, create their consumer persona, determine what the Total Available Market (TAM) size is for their business, and perform the necessary targeting analytics. Their work will culminate in producing some highly personalized marketing materials using Adobe InDesign and variable data/personalization campaigns.

In the program at Cal Poly SLO, students will focus on the current American judicial politics involving the U.S. Supreme Court. This course cover the internal politics of the legal profession, examine law school admissions and teaching methodologies; issues and challenges within the profession; explore how judges are selected; analyze the economic realities of dispute resolution; and, the influences of judicial decisions, with particular attention on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Have you ever wondered how to transfer one of your favorite animation characters into stickers, magnets, or tote bags? Do you wonder what makes the dashboard glow in the car? Students with an interest in graphic design and printing may wonder how colors are printed on t-shirts or how a large-scale Star Wars vinyl wrap was applied to a building or bus?

This course will link a student’s daily experience with tangible printing and graphic embellishments. By the end of this class, students will be comfortable designing for digital printing technologies, and will produce a laser cut LED lamp, notepads with varnish sleek foil stamp, a t-shirt, a canvas poster, a bag or hat, and buttons or stickers using their own designs. In this course, students will experience a wholistic experience of the design and reproduction workflow from ideation, prototyping, iteration, and production.

Podcasts have become one of the most popular forms of audio entertainment. Unlike radio and TV shows, podcasts are an accessible way for aspiring content creators to connect with an audience. Students in this class will acquire and apply the skills needed to write, produce, edit, distribute, market, and even monetize a podcast. During the program, students will work in a hands-on lab writing and producing their own podcast pilot and episodes.

People are viewing their digital media content across a multitude of platforms these days. Today’s UX designers are trained to understand how to design webpages and digital media to easily adapt to the wide variety of devices and platforms that exist in the marketplace. With a focus on a more inclusive mobile user experience, students will learn current technologies and production tools used for the mobile user interface design and prototyping that will expand accessibility for a diverse end-user audience. Students will also learn to apply design principles and ethical considerations to the decision-making process to design the best user experience for mobile digital products. They will spend a majority of their time in the Cal Poly labs using Figma while creating mock mobile web pages that easily function across multiple device platforms.