International Intitiatives, University of Florida

Design for Development (D4D)
A social design initiative where graphic design students and faculty leave our studios to work in the field with artisans, farmers, and organizers on locally defined projects. Bringing together people from diverse communities and disciplines, we design creative, innovative, and sustainable solutions for social, cultural, economic, and environmental problems. Online: design4development.org

Mint in Mexico
Co-taught two courses with Doug Barrett, now at University of Alabama Birmingham. Between 2007 and 2008 taught design and ethnographic fieldwork to UF design students as we worked in collaboration with four rural Maya cooperatives to develop materials to bring their locally-produced products to the regional market. Online: design4development.org

Huichol Calendar Project in Image, Form, and Meaning
Designed and implemented a “real-world” project to graphically present the Huichol concept of time, that has to this time been only an oral tradition, to the Mexican public. The objectives of this project are: to increase intercultural understanding between the Huichol indigenous community and larger Mexican population; provide an opportunity for graphic design students to participate in a cross cultural communication project. Cassie McDaniel, a senior graphic design major, received a UF University Scholars Fellowship to conduct further research and complete this project.

Identity, Culture, Consumption, and Growth on the Maya Riviera
This graduate course critically explores tourism development projects as they relate to issues of identity, development, cultural hegemony, urban development, migration, and multimedia ethnographic documentation with the context of cultural production. Eight students enrolled.

Semester Courses at the University of Florida

Graduate Seminar in Graphic Design
These are rotating topic seminars with a studio component offered each semester to the graduate students in graphic design. The Seminars I have taught include: Designing an Ethnography; Design for the Social Good; Design Research and Practice; Ethnographic Methodologies for the Graphic Design Practice; Visual Literacy and Culture; Propaganda and Visual Communication; Design and Social Responsibility; and Expressive Typography.

Design + Professional Practice Studio (Mint)
Mint is a student-run graphic design studio I established in 2002 to teach students to practice graphic design in a professional context.  It is an experiential professional practice studio with an emphasis on research, discovery, definition, design, and realization of real-world communication design projects in collaboration with peer design teams and selected client-partners. Projects have a pedagogical function and are diverse in concept, content, media, and scope.

Design Workshop
This course bridges the study of design and professional practice. Emphasis is placed on conceptual, professional, and pragmatic design issues applied to likely real-world scenarios. The culmination of this course is the development of a comprehensive portfolio and a major project demonstrating cumulative graphic design skills.

Senior Project
In this course students learn about entering the profession of graphic design. They develop personal websites to showcase their professional portfolios, design philosophy, and résumé.

Typography 2: Composition
Explores the visual organization and integration of typographic information with images in printed documents. Nomenclature, mechanical processes, design and historical contexts are emphasized.

Visualization and Creativity
This course introduces graphic design as an interdisciplinary and dynamic professional practice. Students will learn the many ways graphic design operates in the world and through assignments, learn how to become proficient in a research and conceptual process that is the foundation of successful design artifacts, strategies, and solutions.

Technologies & Processes
Training in tools and materials of graphic design, including printing processes, computer and video processes, photographic and electronic media.

Ideas & Styles
This course integrates the history and theories of graphic design including innovations and contemporary issues in a studio setting.

Image, Form & Meaning
Focused on the development of concepts, metaphors, narratives and visual translations appropriate to communication design.

Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (2006–2007)

Design for the Social Good
Introduction to social design and fieldwork for visual communication students.

Introduction to Interactivity
Focus on principles of interaction design for visual communication students.