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Prof. Mary Banas
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at
Tufts University

When contacting me, use my tufts email and copy my personal email for best results:
mary.banas(at)gmail.com

Office Hours: 
Fridays from 12–1pm, on zoom

How to make an appointment: 
https://calendly.com/mary-banas/office-hours
please book this by 9am on Fridays.

Graphic Arts Area Instagram
Permissions doc for GRA IG is here Syllabus
01 Description
02 Learning Outcomes
03 Assignments
04 How We Work
05 Studio Culture
Tufts University Policies
CalendarBriefs
01 Weekly Images02 Alphabet Book
03 Studio Experiments
04 Poster
05 Sequence Readings

Tutorials (including how to print!)

Review Boards: Advice
Drive
Index

04

How will I work?

DESIGN PROCESS
How do designers make stuff? The short answer is , there are lots of ways. There are some tenents that come up again and again for designers, like visual research and sketching. 

In this course you will adopt and experiement with a variety of methodologies to design. You will utilize and experiment with the following ways of working:


COLLECTION

CRITICAL REFLECTION

CRITIQUE

DESIGN PROPOSALS

PAPER PROTOTYPES + MOCK-UPS

READING

SKETCHING

VISUAL RESEARCH

WORKING ITERATIVELY


I have been designing professionally since 2003 and before that I was in college studying design like you. Most of the approaches I am sharing are things that work for me time and again, but know that they are many ways to design—you will find your own ways as you move through this work, and you will develop and discover new things as you continue with design beyond this course. 

You can expect to do 4-6 hours of work outside of class.

© Professor Mary Banas, Fall 2025School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts Universitysmfa.tufts.edu