DES 420 + DES 421: Professional Practice Project
Fall 2024/Spring 2025
All students will register on a first-come, first-served basis. Courses offer real-world professional experience, are open to seniors, and meet for an extended period of one day per week. Courses involve collaborative teamwork and are often supported by a sponsoring industry partner.
Course Selectives:
The following two-semester options require fall (420) and spring (421) registration with the same instructor to complete the graduation requirement.
DES 421 Interdisciplinary (Solution) Design (IXD) - Tuesdays from 1–6:40 PM
Instructor: Noah Wangerin
Client: OSF Healthcar
Location: Innovation Center
Work on a cross-disciplinary collaborative team with design, engineering, and business faculty and students to develop concepts and pitch them to a UIC Innovation Center corporate partner. Conduct research, define problems, pursue impactful solutions, practice storytelling, and gain real-world professional experience. Projects focus on complex issues within industries such as Healthcare, higher education, technology, mobility, and medicine. Students will learn the value of crafting a compelling story to convey their final concept.
DES 421 Mobile App Design (MAD) - Mondays from 1–6:40 PM
Instructor: Daria Tsoupikova
Client: TBD
Location: Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL)
The Mobile Web Design and Development course provides a solid mobile design and development foundation focusing on user-centered design, and client-side research components. Students will work in teams in the year-long (Fall & Spring)research + design + development process of developing a new mobile app defined by a professional client. Students explore the current standards and best practices of mobile design and user experience (UX). Throughout the course, students work with Adobe CS, Xcode, Swift,
Github, Google Drive and other software and online tools. The course utilizes a hands-on approach to guide students through learning and understanding the mobile design and development process. This course is primarily designed for students with minimal technical experience. By the end of the course, students will be able to plan, design, and implement a front-end functioning mobile app.
The following one-semester options only require fall (420) registration, with the opportunity to choose a new course/intructor for spring (421) registration.
DES 421 Entrepreneurship + Design (EXD) - Thursdays from 1–6:40 PM
Instructor: Susan Stirling and Dan Hogan
Location: Innovation Center
EXD is an opportunity for students in their senior year to immerse themselves in the practice of entrepreneurship. Students align on a problem areas of interest, then form multidisciplinary teams and work together on a particular challenge for the duration of the course. This course is co-taught by faculty in the School of Business and the School of Design.
What distinguishes this course from other professional practice classes is cross-training, rather than discipline specialization. Students engage in a broad range hands-on learning exercises applying human-centered design and business methods to their team problems. This course format offers students the opportunity to develop their teamwork skills, hone personal and professional goals, and better understand the levels of risk they wish to pursue in future work with clients and in business ventures. Design students work on teams with students pursuing degrees in, Business, Engineering and Computer Science. While each student in this course will have their own unique experience, all will develop a strong set of collaborative skills supporting future work in teams.
DES 421 Independent Design Practice - Tuesday/Thursday from 1–3:40 PM
Instructor: TJ O'Keefe
Location: Room 2340
No designer is an island. And islands are better with other designers. In this newly-structured course–open to both Graphic Design and Industrial Design students–you will divide into teams and create your own design studios; from the ground up. You will define values, create an identity and identity system, develop a product, market this product, and ultimately exhibit your company in the form of a pop-up shop during the YES. You will learn interdisciplinary teamworking, project management, and exhibition all within the context of your own design studio.