Teaching the Next-Gen Designers

New Media meant mastery of every medium: print, digital, web, motion, audio. Students needed a curriculum that turned that breadth into a focused, portfolio-ready craft.

For ten years I taught evening classes at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, after the day job: Web Design, Motion Graphics, Typography for Web, Honors and Independent Study. I developed core curricula for both on-campus and online undergraduate and graduate programs, and ran the room on a simple rule: all original content, all new media, all the time.

Consistently strong instructor reviews and a decade of students pushed toward their portfolio goals. Teaching sharpened my own craft, too. Researching, creating and presenting best practices kept me a better designer.