By Design is back.

ByDesign has a long history in the Communication Design Department. What began as an in-print newsletter is now our KUCD blog. Professor Emeritus John Landis began the original in the 1970s as a way to communicate the successes of KUCD Grads. He writes:

“In the 1970s I saw the need for a newsletter featuring what graduates were doing. We were starting to hear such great things about the careers of grads from the newly-formed Advertising Art major, as it was called. I knew a newsletter would serve the dual purpose of sharing info with other grads, as well as a sales tool to give to visiting prospective students and their parents. It was also, in my own vanity, a way for me to always take the first column of the first page for my “editorial.” I like to write and always had something I wanted to talk about. Some of my topics, especially those of a philosophical nature, were better than others.

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Meet KUCD MFA student – Alexis Grant

Alexis Grant is currently working on her MFA in Communication Design here at Kutztown University. Her work included illustration, motion graphics and researching the connection between food and love. We sat down and asked Alexis a couple questions to get to know her better.
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KUCD’s Pop-Up Market, The Rais

In college, design students constantly make things that are the product of their own creative vision. Once they enter the field, their focus becomes completely client driven and far less imaginative. I worked with a small group of graphic design students to start a pop-up market called “The Rais.” In Pennsylvania Dutch, this means “the journey.” The idea is to teach young designers at the start of their journey that they should be making things that will satisfy their own creative aspirations and allow them to develop techniques and skills. They learn that there is an appreciation for highly original and creative work, and there are people who will pay for the beautiful things they make.

Most of the work in The Rais is hand made by students: screen printed t-shirts, tote bags, hand made buttons, letter-pressed sketchbooks, coasters and one-off objects. Posters, postcards, and greeting cards are printed in our service bureau. Not only do the students design and produce the beautiful work that we sell, they also source the materials, create a budget for the finished pieces, price the work and man the shop. The shop itself was designed and branded by students. It pops up at important department events, preview days, and before holidays in several locations across campus. We hope to start an online store. The students have learned surprising lessons about marketing, branding, pricing and managing money that they would not have learned in the classroom. The pride and satisfaction that they take away from the experience makes The Rais the beginning of a life-long journey of making, learning and creative fulfillment.

Professor Bosler writes how an MFA can Boost Your Career

Last year, Kutztown University’s Communication Design Department’s (KUCD) modified the MFA program to a low residency program. KUCD low-residency MFA in Communication Design holds two distinctions—we are the only MFA in Communication Design in PA State System of education and we are NASAD accredited. Professor Denise Bosler wrote this article in How Magazine that explains the reasons this degree can excel your career.

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