Graphic Design and Visual Communication A — Design Thinking and Principles (Open Curriculum Edition)

Graphic Design and Visual Communication A — Design Thinking and Principles is the first semester of a full-year CTE course in the Arts, Media and Entertainment sector (pathway A: Design, Visual and Media Arts), UC A-G area G. This is the Open Curriculum Edition: every text is public domain, CC0 or CC BY, and every tool is free and open source.

Four units: Graphic Design as Visual Communication, Design Thinking: Problems, Audiences and Briefs, Tools, Media and the Iterative Workflow, and Principles of Design. Each unit opens with an industry case study, then moves through a hands-on studio exercise, a critique and collaboration lab, a production workshop and a culminating portfolio project.

Tools: GIMP (raster images), Inkscape (vector illustration), Krita (digital painting) and Scribus (page layout), plus paper, pencil and markers. Concepts are taught so they transfer to any software. Where a school licenses Adobe applications, students may also prepare for the optional Adobe Certified Professional exams in Graphic Design & Illustration or Visual Design; this course alone does not claim to prepare them for those exams.

Sources: Graphic Design and Print Production Fundamentals (Graphic Communications Open Textbook Collective, BCcampus, CC BY 4.0); U.S. Copyright Office circulars; Creative Commons license deeds (CC BY 4.0); public-domain and CC0 posters and prints from museum and Library of Congress collections; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook; SLS-written lessons, studios and projects. Fonts used in student work are under the SIL Open Font License.