English Department Resources, Events, and Projects
Design Center
North side basement of Milton Hall
Phone: (505) 646-1096
Contact: Dr. Jennifer Sheppard (jasheppa@nmsu.edu)
The overarching goal of the Design Center is to offer multimedia technologies, development resources and instructional support for English Department graduate students interested in creating multimodal texts for varied audiences. Through coursework and student-run consultancy projects, it immerses learners in authentic communicative, expressive, and creative activities by providing an environment that combines direct instruction and theoretical inquiry with practice-based approaches. It affords opportunities for production and research collaboration across disciplinary, university, community, and industry boundaries. Through this outreach, students work on projects that provide situations for learning to respond in creative and rhetorically sophisticated ways to the dynamic needs and interests of variable contexts and audiences.
Though limited in the number of students it can serve at one time, the Design Center is particularly well equipped to support graduate courses in publication management, document design, multimedia production and editing, digital video composing, interactive multimedia development, and web-based communication. It also has potential for courses in literacy and rhetoric through incorporating digital media as a means of conducting research (e.g., qualitative, community-based inquiry, work on the usability of texts, etc.). Additionally, the Center provides a space for courses in creative writing and literature that integrate digital text production and analysis. And finally, the Center may be used by English Department faculty for courses tied to the Creative Media Institute and relating directly to the production of digital media for communicative purposes.
Priorities for Use
Although the Center may, on occasion, be available for other uses, the following groups and activities have priority under the goals/vision discussed above:
- The Design Center should be made available for graduate level classes that could benefit directly from access to digital production technologies.
- The Design Center should, as trained (through a short, mandatory orientation), knowledgeable graduate students become available to work as volunteer or department-assigned consultants, be used to provide students with advanced, hands-on practice through the use of situated, client-based projects. (This priority will help to offer internship (or internship-like) experiences, providing students the opportunity to develop and expand professional communication practices which prepare them for post-graduate school employment.). It may also provide resources for thesis, portfolio, or dissertation work and research directly related to digital media production.
- The Design Center is available to departmental projects and programs, such as La Sociedad, for the production of materials related to those efforts.
- The Design Center may also be made available for grant-based work only with prior approval of the Design Center Advisory Committee (explained below) and then only in accordance with the Grant-based Work Guidelines (also explained below.
- Only in exceptional circumstances is the Design Center be made available for use with undergraduate classes. This is due in large part to the priorities listed above, the limited physical space and number of computers available.
What's Available?
The Design Center uses Power Macs and iMacs to run a number of applications for graphic design, page layout, web/HTML editing, web animation and interactive multimedia, video editing, and audio editing. A scanner and inkjet and laser printing are also available. The Design Center's software includes:
Adobe Creative Suite 2
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
- InDesign
- Go Live
Macromedia Studio MX
- Dreamweaver
- Flash
- Fireworks
- Freehand
Apple Final Cut Studio
- Final Cut Pro
- Soundtrack
- Motion
- DVD Studio Pro
Apple Applications
- iMovie
- iDVD
- iTunes
- iPhoto
- Garage Band
- Final Cut Express
Microsoft Office 2004
- Word
- Powerpoint
- Excel
- MiniDV digital camera (supply your own tapes) and tripod
- 3.2 megapixel digital camera
- Sony MiniDisc audio recorder
- iPod (for voice recording and data storage during projects)
- 6"x8" Wacom graphics tablet
- web video camera and software for online video conferencing
- studio headphones (for sound editing)
Design Center Volunteer Consultants
If you are interested in learning more about gaining access to the Design Center through the volunteer consultancy program, click here.
To access the training and resource manual for information about the software and equipment in the Design Center, click here.
Client-Based Consultancy Projects
Are you a non-profit organization or small technical company that could use some new, low-cost communication materials? In conjunction with courses in our graduate programs in Rhetoric, Technical, and Professional Communication, the Design Center works with clients on a consultancy basis to develop a variety of materials. This includes print and online materials, as well as video and DVD. Clients are expected to work with students to appropriately shape these materials for the intended audience and purpose. For more information, please contact Dr. Jennifer Sheppard at (505) 646-2341 or jasheppa@nmsu.edu.