Figma Community Page

User Research Workshop

As an ambitious product designer, implementing user research into my workflow feels like a superpower! Being data-driven in my designs empowers me to advocate for consumers to ensure I’m meeting their needs. It’s a customer service mindset that I love sharing with my students. They learn to fail fast with many “a-ha” moments along the way. I really see sparks fly inside their minds after their first user interview amongst their peers. This lesson is a turning point in the semester that inspires a new product mindset for the rest of the academic year, and ultimately their careers.

Credits to Gregg Berstein and Meghan Cetera for teaching me everything I know about user research.
Opportunity Solution Tree by Teresa Torres

Figma Community Page

Design Resources for Beginners

“Sure, I can draw — but can I build a career with my visual creativity?”

That was my question stepping into the professional design world in 2012. I went from sketching ideas in my small spiral notebook to enrolling at SVA, one of the most prestigious design schools, with no idea where to find professional fonts, or images, or assets. I was Googling my questions away while everyone around me seemed to already know—Adobe Fonts, Designspiration, and more. Honestly, I would’ve stayed in the 1001fonts.com world if it weren’t for my late-night homework buddies sharing their tips and tricks.

Now, as an adjunct professor, I’m grateful to give back to the community that helped me start my career. So here’s a place for others to begin: a curated list of beginner-friendly design resources to help you dive in.

Custom Asynchronous Summer Course for SVA

Sophomore Skills Kickstarter

As a fellow adjunct professor and alum of the School of Visual Arts, I know how important it is for students to nimbly adapt within an ever-evolving creative landscape. To catapult them into their sophomore year, we developed an asynchronous summer course covering the basics of the Adobe Suite, freeing professors to focus on more industry-leading tools such as Figma and AI throughout the semester.

Freshman year at SVA instills strong design principles through hands-on exercises: compositions in drawing class with pen and ink, contrast in color theory with cut-paper collage, hierarchy through hand-painted typography. Strong. Design. Principles. It’s what sets us apart.

Kickstarter offers the opportunity to level-set expectations heading into sophomore year—a full first sweep of the Adobe Suite from Illustrator to Photoshop to InDesign. We guide the cohort through the process of creating an 8-page visual story of their favorite food and its origin. Along the way, students interweave the programs: from custom vector assets uploaded to the Creative Cloud, to building digital storefronts and mockups within multi-page, print-ready brand presentations.

I know what some of you are thinking: “Won’t AI take away the need for Photoshop and logo artwork soon anyway?” While we recognize the rapid pace of technological change, our goal is to ground students in a strong foundation of technical skills. By understanding how ideas are built—layer by layer, tool by tool—students gain the fluency to adapt to new platforms, experiment with emerging technologies, and confidently bring their creative visions to life.

And it’s paying off! Department professors, myself included, have already noticed measurable improvements in students’ skills, enabling us to focus on fresh, advanced material throughout the academic year.

CREDITS:
Laine Leckie, Faculty Curriculum Coordinator at SVA
Tina Fong, Computer Art Professor at SVA

Excerpts from the lessons