Design Department Offers New Illustration Certificate

Western Washington University’s Department of Design is offering a new illustration certificate beginning fall 2019. The program is six classes, making up 18 credits, with two courses running each quarter of the 2019/20 academic year.

The new certificate gives students the chance to supplement their degree by adding this extra credential to their repertoire. The program also aims to help students consider a career as a freelance illustrator.

This fall the program begins with two classes based on conceptualizing illustration. Commercial Illustration Concepts will teach the commercial applications of illustration. The class is taught by the program coordinator Keith Negley and features real-life projects taken from assignments Negley has received in his professional career. The second class offered this fall is Principles of Illustration taught by artist/illustrator Andrea Heimer. The class will teach illustration as a means of visual problem solving and how to present irony, metaphors and more with illustrations.

Negley is an esteemed freelance illustrator with a range of clients from The New York Times, The New Yorker, This American Life, Sub Pop Records, TIME, NPR and many more. Negley has also published three picture books. He received a Master’s in Fine Arts from The School of Visual Arts in 2013.

Western’s Department of Design utilizes curriculum that emphasizes the process of problem solving and encourages the students to make connections between culture and design and their role as visual communicators. To learn more about the department visit wwu.edu/design.