MADD 29401 and 29402

Capstone Sequence

Methdologies (Autumn) and Production (Winter)

Welcome to Capstone! This two-quarter sequence is for any fourth year MADD majors or minors who are ready to commit to a focused, self-directed project. It's a chance to develop a creative idea with clear milestones, peer critique, faculty mentorship, and access to university resources including the MADD Center, the Logan Media Center, and more. In addition to supporting your project, the course introduces professional methodologies and terminology used across creative industries, so you become fluent in how creative work is scoped, designed, and delivered. Whether you're working solo or collaboratively, Capstone provides structure and feedback to help bring a substantial project to life.

You can find the class syllabus here and can submit assignments on our canvas page. We've also got a class discord for facilitating connections with our cohort outside of class (finding collaboratorations, getting feedback, scheduling test sessions, etc).

This website contains resources for guiding you through the various phases of your project's development as well as for producing the required documents. Links on this site are color coded:

the Media Art and Design Program logo, a pixelated and glitched version of the university's pheonix logo

Project Phases and Resources


Phase 1: Inspiration

Everything that we see, hear, read, watch, listen to, experience, taste, all of these things get copied transformed and combined into new creations and new ideas. It's our conscious mind that supplies the subconscious with the materials it needs, in other words the subconscious mind cooks the meal but the conscious mind buys all the groceries. The objective (of this phase) is to create the circumstances from which your subconscious mind can spit out an idea. Kirby Ferguson (creator of Everything is a Remix)

Inspiration Research Guide: Here you'll find notes on research methods for gathering and evaluating the material from which our ideas will grow. Some of these methods are fairly standard in academic contexts while others borrow more from art and design processes.



Phase 2: Ideation

An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements. That is, perhaps the most important fact in connection with the production of ideas. The second important principle involved is that the capacity to bring old elements into new combinations, depends largely on the ability to see relationships. James Webb Young (from A Technique for Producing Ideas)

Ideation Guide: Here you'll find various techniques for producing ideas from ad creatives (James Webb Young's A Technique for Producing Ideas) and designers (IDEO's "design thinking" methods), as well as other creative approaches by experimental artists and makers such as incorporating randomness (Simone Giertz, Brian Eno, John Cage, etc) to embracing boredom (Manoush Zomorodi, Jenny Odell)



Phase 3: Implementation

At base, we iterate because we know that we won't get it right the first time. Or even the second. Iteration allows us the opportunity to explore, to get it wrong, to follow our hunches, but ultimately arrive at a solution that will be adopted and embraced. We iterate because it allows us to keep learning. Instead of hiding out in our workshops, betting that an idea, product, or service will be a hit, we quickly get out in the world and let the people we're designing for be our guides. Gaby Brink (President & Chief Designer of Tomorrow Partners)

Iterative Implementation: Once we've got an idea, it's time to start making. We'll begin by refining our concept into a Creative Brief which sets our direction, followed by a series of iterative "rapid prototyping" sprints, where we further develop our idea through planning and making. We start with scrappy prototypes in short sprints, put them in front of people (play test and critique), learn, and repeat. With each cycle, you don't just change the work, you should also update the living documents that steer it: your Design Doc (the diagrams/specs), your Production Plan (scope/timeline) and your Pitch (the external story you'll use to seek support). Each revision is versioned and dated, and decisions are grounded in evidence from play tests and critiques. The specific documents and expectations are detailed below.


Project Documents


A Creative Brief is a core document that guides both you and any collaborators or stakeholders, ensuring clarity in the purpose, audience, and conceptual direction of your work. It's less about execution and more about setting the conceptual groundwork for your creative process.


The Design Doc is a detailed plan which describes how your software, game, installation or other media experience works. It translates the Creative Brief's intent into concrete notes with diagrams and checklists that a collaborator (and yourself) could prototype from. It's a living document (updated alongside prototypes) with clear success criteria you can test for. Keep your writing tight, your diagrams detailed and your checklists comprehensive.


The Production Plan is your execution roadmap: what you’ll ship, when, and with which resources. It complements the Design Doc by translating your concepts/designs into a feasible plan with dated milestones and iterative sprints with scheduled production time, test sessions, and analysis. Treat it as a living document to keep scope aligned with time, resources, facilities, and budget. Just as you might imagine a creative collaborator as the audience for your Design Doc (even if you're working solo), imagine a project manager when writing this one.


Your Pitch Deck is a concise, visual narrative used to win support, but before you ask for help, your prospective patrons should understand what the project is, who it's for, why it matters now, what you've got planned and what you've accomplished so far (the proof it works). You'll have the opportunity to pitch your work to a panel of MADD faculty week 9 of the Autumn quarter with the chance to be awared a micro-grant.