Graphic Design | Fall 2025 BE+GOA Pilot
Unleash Your Visual Voice: What makes a message persuasive and compelling? How do audiences interpret and make sense of information? This course dives into the powerful relationship between information and influence from a graphic design perspective. You’ll gain the skills to create impactful visual content, exploring design principles, infographics, social media, digital search strategies, social activism, and multimedia storytelling. Through a case study and design-based approach, you’ll work on individual and collaborative projects, content curation, writing, peer critiques, and online presentations.
Why Take This Course?
If you’re interested in art, design, marketing, or visual storytelling, this course will empower you to design and prototype passion-driven communication projects driven by your interests. By the end, you’ll have a portfolio of creative work and a solid understanding of how design shapes the way we share and interpret information.
Synchronous meeting requirements:
- Virtual class sessions will take place every other week and this time will be used for short presentations, Q&A and discussions.
- There will be 1 in-person/F2F session scheduled for a field learning experience and/or meeting with local guest experts. Possible field learning sites include: SFMOMA, Oakland Museum of California, Letterform Archive, American Institute of Graphic Arts
UC Approved: 
(Interdisciplinary)
About the GOA Instructor
Ken Schwartz – Global Online Academy
After working as an architect for ten years in Indiana and Minnesota, Ken moved overseas and began his career teaching P.E. He taught in Poland, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and the Dominican Republic. In 2017, Ken joined the GOA faculty to teach architecture and has since added both Graphic Design and Fitness/Health. Outside of GOA, he is afflicted with interests. He is rarely idle, exploring the world, painting art for his business Kenswanderings, bird watching, journaling, playing soccer, studying the built environment, and enjoying his family.
About the BlendEd Local Enrichment Guide
Tara Teslow – BlendEd Consortium
Originally from Colorado, Tara has been a graphic designer for 5 years. After receiving her Master’s Degree in graphic design from the Florence Institute of Design, she moved to San Francisco to further her career at San Francisco University High School. As a pioneering guide for this BlendEd + GOA pilot course, she is thrilled to explore SF’s design scene alongside the students. Tara is an avid tennis player, snowboarder, thrift shopper, and obsessed with her kindle.
Student Testimonials
