Live Courses | Foundations

STUDIO: FOUNDATIONS

Build Confidence in Visual Thinking & Communication

Success in design and innovation requires presenting ideas that are clear, compelling, and memorable. This foundational studio course builds essential skills in design thinking, process, and visualization to help you effectively bring your ideas to life.

Course Summary

Upon completing this course, you’ll gain confidence in visual thinking, sketching, and presenting ideas effectively. You’ll develop skills in prototyping, critique, and iteration, enabling you to communicate design concepts with clarity and impact.

Key Details

  • Format: Live instruction from AC4D faculty, including office hours

  • Schedule: Sundays 6-9 PM & Thursdays 5-6 PM CST

  • Duration: 10 weeks

  • Tuition: $4,000 $2,550

  • Location: Remote

Upcoming Courses

  • 📆 June 9, 2025

  • 📌 Enrollments close approximately two weeks before each course begins.

This course will enable you to:

  • Fearlessness in getting thoughts out of their heads and onto, literal paper, in a visual format.

  • A high-level of comfort of effectively sketching (i.e. hand drawing) at varying degrees of fidelity.

  • An understanding of the basics of visual design and communication.

  • Familiarity with design and collaboration tools.

  • Hustle and grit. Embracing ambiguity and messiness in order to move quickly.

  • The ability to talk, present, and think visually in a public setting.

  • The ability to communicate and recruit people to a vision of the future with confidence.

  • An understanding of and competence in high-value critique

  • Use frameworks/heuristics for evaluating various forms of design and communication.

  • Practice sketching through a variety of mediums, and execute at various levels of fidelity.

  • Generate and sustain their own creative momentum.

  • Understand the value of rigor and iteration through the design process.

Curriculum

  • Week 1-2: Introduction & Foundations

  • Week 3: Critique & Problem Definition

  • Week 4: Ideation & Concept Generation

  • Week 5: Organizing & Storytelling

  • Week 6: Prototyping & Experimentation

  • Week 7: Refinement & High-Fidelity Prototyping

  • Week 8-9: Final Deliverable Preparation

  • Week 10: Final Presentations

AC4D students, alumni & faculty are Designing for Impact