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I teach designers to think critically, build responsibly, and present work with confidence.

Across five Southern New Hampshire University courses, I guide students from early design thinking through professional practice, responsive web production, experience analysis, CMS publishing, and portfolio readiness.

My classroom connects creative judgment to the standards of real digital work.

I teach students to explain who a design serves, what problem it solves, how the experience works, and why each decision matters. Assignments move beyond visual polish into research, structure, accessibility, testing, critique, and professional communication.

That approach is grounded in my own work across public websites, enterprise content systems, campaigns, and front-end production. Students see how design decisions continue through handoff, launch, maintenance, and measurement.

Five courses across the design-to-web pipeline.

Each course develops a different part of the same professional practice: understand the audience, make informed choices, build usable work, and communicate the outcome.

GRA 280

Design Thinking for Graphic Designers

Students move from a clearly defined human need to ideas, prototypes, critique, user feedback, and a reasoned design solution.

  • Human-centered design
  • Ideation
  • Prototyping
  • User testing

GRA 290

Professional Practices in Graphic Design

Students learn to scope creative work, communicate with stakeholders, manage schedules, price services, and make ethical professional decisions.

  • Project management
  • Client communication
  • Contracts and pricing
  • Design ethics

GRA 310

Digital Graphic Design for the Web

Students translate design fundamentals into responsive web experiences using optimized assets, semantic structure, accessibility, and current production standards.

  • Responsive design
  • HTML and CSS
  • Asset optimization
  • Accessibility and SEO

GRA 352

Web Analysis and Design

Students audit an existing experience, use evidence to recommend improvements, and communicate responsive sitemaps, wireframes, and interface concepts.

  • Website audits
  • Information architecture
  • Figma prototyping
  • UX recommendations

GRA 410

Advanced Digital Graphic Design for the Web

Students build a professional portfolio in a CMS, connecting audience strategy, content, UX/UI, accessible assets, critique, and presentation.

  • Portfolio strategy
  • CMS production
  • UX/UI
  • Professional presentation

What students practice with me.

The goal is not simply to finish an assignment. It is to build a repeatable way of thinking and working.

Human-centered critique

Feedback stays connected to audience, purpose, hierarchy, and usability—not personal taste.

Accessible web standards

Students apply readable structure, alt text, responsive behavior, asset preparation, and inclusive design choices.

Design-to-production thinking

Concepts become practical sitemaps, wireframes, mockups, web assets, pages, and CMS content.

Professional communication

Students practice presenting rationale, responding to stakeholders, documenting decisions, and defending the work clearly.

Project responsibility

Scope, schedules, contracts, ethics, legal considerations, and sustainable working practices are part of the craft.

Portfolio and career readiness

Students learn to select work, write project narratives, refine through critique, and present with confidence.

A classroom built around making, testing, and explaining.

Students move through a visible learning cycle and revisit earlier decisions when critique or evidence reveals a stronger direction.

  • UnderstandResearch the audience, context, and need.
  • DefineFrame the problem and success criteria.
  • MakeGenerate, prototype, and build ideas.
  • EvaluateTest, critique, and use evidence.
  • PresentRefine the work and explain the decisions.

Tools and methods students encounter.

Course work spans the creative, technical, and professional sides of digital design.

  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Figma
  • Visual Studio Code
  • HTML and CSS
  • Bootstrap
  • CampusPress and CMS workflows
  • Responsive design
  • Accessibility and SEO
  • Critique and user testing
  • Project management

A practical portfolio review framework.

This example shows how I help students evaluate a project before presenting it. It reflects my teaching approach without displaying confidential student work.

  1. Story + rationaleName the audience, problem, constraints, decisions, and result so the project is more than a gallery image.
  2. Accessible presentationCheck heading order, contrast, alternative text, link purpose, reading sequence, and responsive behavior.
  3. Web-ready assetsUse the right file format, dimensions, compression, naming, and supporting text for dependable publishing.
  4. Critique + revisionConnect feedback to audience and purpose, document what changed, and explain why the revision is stronger.

I teach the standards I use in practice.

Students leave with more than finished screens. They gain a stronger process for understanding people, making decisions, building usable experiences, and speaking about their work as professionals.

Discuss Teaching and Collaboration