Navigating design resources at Berkeley
The first week of school is often a hectic one. One walk across Sproul Plaza, the ever-crowded hub for clubs and loose-leaf flyering, and you’ll be reminded that campus life is back in full, unapologetic swing.
For folks interested in design, choosing the right classes can be a total wildcard, especially when your school doesn’t institutionally support you with a formal major for what you want to do. On top of that, design is spread across classes in multiple academic disciplines, as well as a number of different student organizations with their own application processes (yes, even for some of the classes).
Sound overwhelming? It certainly can be, but don’t worry — we’ve been through it all, and that’s why we compiled a quick and dirty guide for navigating design resources at Cal.
We’ll walk through several formal courses, DeCals, academic programs and organizations that serve the many shapes and sizes of design at Berkeley to help you find your place in the design space.
Quick Q&A
- Where can I see all the design classes ever? designatberkeley.com/classes
- What about classes for offered this Fall? jacobsinstitute.berkeley.edu/learn/courses
- How about the student-led DeCals? decal.berkeley.edu/courses
- Why is it worth investing in design opportunities for students? medium.com/@JacobsDesignCal/making-connections-supporting-skill-development-and-interdisciplinary-attitudes-28957d8743d7
🐣 For the UX design newbies…
Not sure if you’re interested in design or not? These courses provide a great overview of the design thinking process and methodologies for folks who are just testing the waters. These classes won’t be too time consuming, but often fill up quickly because there are no major requirements or class prerequisites.
In these classes, you’ll likely be working closely with a tight-knit team of students from different majors to complete design projects on a given prompt. Grades are heavily based on peer reviews and effort, so don’t worry if you’re coming in with absolutely no design experience. You’ll walk away with invaluable collaboration skills, an idea of how the design process works, and a a fun portfolio piece (hopefully new friends too, but we know group projects aren’t for everyone).
- DES INV 10: Discovering Design
- DES INV 15: Design Methodology
- DES INV 24: User Experience Design
- IEOR 190E-001: Product Design
- COMPSCI 160: User Interface Design and Development (⚠️ focused on programming for Android apps, prepare to do independent learning if you don’t already have a technical background).
🔧 For the physical design tinkerers…
If you’ve ever been curious about how design thinking interacts with the physical world and public spaces, then these classes are for you. They prompt interesting design projects supplemented by lessons in critical design theory, all while working in interdisciplinary teams.
Classes with numbers above 200 are considered graduate-level classes and most of these classes will require applications either one semester in advance, or early during the current semester to ensure a chance at enrollment. Think of the assignments as a means to learn the different prototyping resources we have here at Berkeley, in addition to design thinking. You’ll walk out of these classes feeling cozy with the 3D printer in Jacobs Hall and more introspective about how we interact with products in the real world.
- NWMEDIA 190: Critical Practices: People, Places, Participation (Fall)
- NWMEDIA C203/MCENG C205: Critical Making (Spring)
- DES INV 181/ME 282–002: Reimagining Mobility
- DES INV 22: Prototyping and Fabrication
🐍 For the “I’ll handle the business side” folks…
Design isn’t all about the visuals. If you’re interested in design thinking but don’t care for the pixel-perfect contributor lifestyle, fret not — there are other team and project-based courses in the undergraduate business program that are prerequisite free.
These courses might be for you if want to focus more on higher-level product thinking and management without a specific medium of design.
- UGBA 190T: Innovation and Design Thinking in Business
- IND ENG 186: Project Management
- ART 100/THEATER 100/UGBA 190T: Collaborative Innovation
🎨 For the hands-on artists…
Whether you’re a multi-media traditional artist or a notebook margin doodler, these hands-on classes will give you plenty of opportunities to create art pieces, and you can bet on drawing at least 300 cubes.
Most of these are prerequisites for the Art Practice and Architecture majors, so be warned, some of these classes can be very time consuming with long studio hours.
- DES INV 21: Sketching & Visual Communication
- ART 8: Introduction to Visual Thinking
- LD ARCH 1: Drawing a Green Future: Fundamentals of Visual Representation and Creativity
- ENV DES 1: People and Environmental design
🏊🏽♀️ For those ready to dive deep into design…
If you’re coming in with past experience in design or have already taken many of the DES INV classes, then these graduate courses might be for you. You won’t be able to automatically enroll in them, but you can try emailing the professor or I-School to ask for permission to either audit or get a special enrollment code to waitlist the class.
- INFO C262: Theory and Practice of Tangible User Interfaces
- INFO 213: User Interface Design and Development
- INFO 214: User Experience Research
- INFO 290: Product Design Studio
- INFO 232: Applied Behavioral Economics
📚 Commitment issues? Terrible Phase I time?
Even seniors have a hard time getting into design classes. Luckily, there’s an amazing student-run design community that provides people with courses worth real units, and graded on a pass/no pass basis. There’s truly something for everyone and anyone, from designing virtual reality games to learning how to create a 2D animation.
In addition to being supported by a teaching team of incredibly talented and passionate students, you’ll also get a chance to familiarize yourself with the design community, as many of these DeCals are led by organizations that have opportunities for interested new folks to join.
Most DeCals have brief application processes, many of which are already live! Keep your eyes out for the application due dates, and because many of these DeCals are quite popular, your responses to the short answer questions matter — so don’t BS them!
Full list of DeCals: decal.berkeley.edu/courses
- DES INV 98 / 198: Human-Centered Design Decal (Berkeley Innovation)
- DES INV 98 / 198: Web Design Decal
- COMPSCI 98 / 198: Typography Decal
- COMPSCI 98 / 198: Photoshop + Illustrator Decal (Innovative Design)
- COMPSCI 98 / 198: Principles of Graphic Design Decal (Innovative Design)
- COMPSCI 98 / 198: Photography Decal (Innovative Design)
- ART 98 / 198: UCBUGG: Art and Story
- COMPSCI 98 /198: UCBUGG: 3D Modeling & Animation
- DES INV 198–5: 3D Printing and Designing
- CS 198: Developing for Virtual Reality (Virtual Reality at Berkeley)
- DES INV 95: Design Innovation Lecture Series (Jacobs Hall)
📝 Programs
Fung Fellowship fungfellows.berkeley.edu
- A two-year fellowship program that includes a 3 unit lecture and lab course, an industry internship, and an honors program that involves engagement with community partners. This program tends to be more public health and wellness focused, though they embrace fellows from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
BCDI bcdi.berkeley.edu
- A program made up of four courses (one foundation, two design skills, and one advanced design) to guide students through a sequence of design education. While it certainly doesn’t hurt and you may as well apply for it if you’ve taken several design classes, we’re not entirely sure if the certificate itself means much — but the projects and experiences you’ll get from taking the classes will be worth it.
Jacobs Hall of Design Innovation jacobsinstitute.berkeley.edu
- Your one stop shop for design resources for undergrads on campus. Home of the Maker Space, design innovation classes, design student organizations, student-led DeCals free workshops and speaker series.
- Would HIGHLY recommend signing up for the Jacobs Hall mailing list, find details here: groups.google.com/a/lists.berkeley.edu/forum/#!forum/jacobs_community
👀 Clubs to look out for
The first week of school is prime time for getting to know what kinds of design organizations exist on campus. While there are dozens of different types of design and innovation clubs to explore, we’ve highlighted four here.
Like most clubs at Cal, they have their own application processes and recruitment timelines. Recruitment typically wraps up within the first 3–4 weeks of the semester.
If you’re new to club culture at Cal, be prepared to ramp up with interviews, coffee chats and design challenges (yes, club recruitment on campus can be a harrowing experience, but this is a discussion for another time). If you get the opportunity to join one, you can generally expect a mix of all-hands meetings, project-based team meetings, club socials, and external events.
If you don’t care for clubs or are not in a position to commit 6–8 hours a week to a club, totally valid. We’ll be writing more about how many of us self-taught designers got started without extracurricular or institutional support.
For the full directory of campus organizations: callink.berkeley.edu/Organizations
Berkeley Innovation (berkeleyinnovation.org)
Berkeley Innovation (BI) is the home of human-centered design at UC Berkeley. Since 2003, we’ve united makers, thinkers, tinkerers, and doers from a wide range of disciplines behind a shared love for design innovation.
- Berkeley Innovation matches students to real world clients for semester-long design projects, in which 4-person teams get to learn human-centered design processes to research, design, and prototype a real solution for a real client need.
- Each semester, there are new types of consulting projects, ranging from UX design to service experience design. In the community, we teach the Human-Centered Design DeCal, teach design workshops, host design talks with industry professionals, and organize an annual HCD conference.
- No past design experience required, and all majors are welcome. For more information on Fall 2019 recruiting: facebook.com/events/495590817676570
Innovative Design (innovativedesign.club)
Innovative Design is UC Berkeley’s premier creative agency. We are designers, photographers, and web developers together in a mission to Make Berkeley Beautiful.
- Innovative Design offers a huge variety of opportunities to get in touch with your creative side. There are teams for web design, graphic design, and photography. Gold-tier teams work pro-bono with campus orgs, and blue-tier teams collaborate with paid clients. InnoD also hosts multiple design DeCals and several external events each semester.
- No past design experience required for gold-tier teams. To stay updated on Fall 2019 DeCals and club recruiting: facebook.com/InnovativeDesignUCB
Ethical (ethicalapparel.org)
Ethical is a student-run social enterprise that provides affordable, high-quality screen printing and free design services on ethically-made clothing.
- Ethical creates custom designs for organizations and sell their own clothing and sticker line through their online shop. This semester, they’re directing profits towards organizations focused on water conservation and labor rights, two areas heavily impacted by (un)sustainable fashion. Members develop design skills, business knowledge, and social awareness.
- For more information on Fall 2019 recruiting: tinyurl.com/ethicalfall19
Blueprint (calblueprint.org)
Blueprint strives to make technology accessible and useful for those who create communities and promote public welfare. We’re a team of UC Berkeley students that develops software pro bono for nonprofits and promotes technology for social good.
- Although they’re well known for their software engineering chops, Blueprint has expanded to include designers in their organization. Unlike most other tech consulting groups on campus that serve large corporations (think Facebook, Google, AirBNB), Blueprint’s projects are focused on using technology in a socially impactful way by working with nonprofits. They also host several tech talks each semester that are open to the community.
- To stay updated on Fall 2019 recruiting: facebook.com/CalBlueprint
🗺 Last but not least…
We hope this gives you an idea of the resources for design education we have at Cal (and so many more that we didn’t mention here). If there’s anything to take away from seeing all the different options in this guide, it’s this: there’s no right or wrong path, and it’s never too late to get started in design.
Happy exploring and thanks for reading!
Who are we?
Berkeley Innovation is a human-centered design consultancy at UC Berkeley founded in 2003. Our mission is to provide a community for students interested in design to develop their skills and experience, and make design education & resources more accessible to everyone at Berkeley.
You can find us on our website, Medium, Facebook, Instagram and Behance.
