VISION Course: From Wild Ideas to a Perfect Pitch in Six Weeks from Sterling Hundley

A course from Sterling Hundley

Focus your creative VISION to develop your wild ideas into a perfect pitch in 6 weeks.

Vision will teach you a framework to capture your wild ideas and focus your vision so you can see them through. If we're going to thrive as creators in the artificial age, we're going to have to create our own opportunities. 

Taught by Illustrator, Designer and Professor Sterling Hundley, Vision builds on the Think Louder framework introduced through IDEACRAFT and VOICE.

VISION is delivered through video lectures, email lessons, assignments, and community engagement. LIVE courses include direct feedback through critiques with Sterling Hundley once a week.

Overview

As they say in creative industries, publish or perish.

If you want your personal projects and creative ideas to be taken seriously, you have to be clear with your vision and communication. Now more than ever, artists have to create their own opportunities as they navigate new technologies, develop stories, create intellectual property and find new markets to support themselves.

VISION teaches you a step-by-step process that you can use in your professional and daily life to capture and organize ideas, develop them into projects and to propose them at early stages of development to vet interest, support and funding.

This process will allow you to develop proposals for a wide array of applications in creative industries from books, comics, collaborations, games, stories, articles, residencies, exhibitions to workshops. You'll also learn to shape your develop your proposals to work across silos with organizations, companies and institutions outside of traditional creative circles.

Vision lessons are organized in a logical, easy-to-follow system designed to demystify the creative process.

Objectives

VISION will teach you to organize your creative ideas into a completed proof of concept project and a final pitch. This is a class for those of you who want to create your own opportunities, services, products, stories, intellectual property, and chart your own course.

Outcomes

If you're like most, you have too many ideas but lack the clarity to see them through. Through VISION, you'll learn how to:

• Ideacatcher- A system to capture and organize fleeting ideas.
• Research Document- your target industry and market.
• (1) Prototype- organize your ideas into a well-structured project (proof of concept).
• (12) Thumbnails: efficiently iterate your ideas through drawing, collating, photo-bashing, and other methods.
• (1) Mission Statement: Develop a clear vision for your project.
• (1) Vision Board- Create a vision board to reign in the scope of your project.
• (1) Dream Client List- Develop a future client contact list
• (1) Executive Summary- Draft an Executive Summary that clearly explains your project.
• (1) Final Proof of Concept- Develop an efficient proof of concept that illustrates your project.
• (1) Final Pitch- Develop a final proposal that organizes your ideas to enter your market.
• Publish or Perish- Launch your pitch out into the world.

Schedule

• Weekend OO- Orientation: Introduction to course structure, expectations, and materials.
• Week O1- Creative Organization: Packing, Priming, Unpacking, Organizing.
• Week O2- Prototype and Thumbnails: Research, Scoping, Clarify Vision, First Principles, Executive Summary
• Week O3- Client contact list and Executive Summary finalization and Proof of concept development.
• Week O4- Proof of concept development
• Week O5- Pitch design and proof of concept finalization.
• Week O6- Deliver final pitch and final project.

Delivery

VISION lessons are delivered by email three times each week. Lessons include articles, case studies, video lectures, media demonstrations and assignments. You will be invited to engage with the Think Louder community through Discord.

You can take Vision two ways:

1. Independent Study (currently in development) You choose when the automated emails begin. They are designed around a three-day schedule. If you enroll on a Friday, you'll receive emails on M/W/F. If you enroll on a Saturday, lessons will arrive on T/Thr/Sa, etc. *Independent Study does not include access to critiques and feedback from instructor. (currently not available)
2. With a team: Live + Recorded critique sessions. *Offered at different times throughout the year. Orientation starts on Fridays with lessons following on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This gives students time to process lessons and complete assignments, as well as collaborate with other students in the Think Louder community on Discord. Critique dates and times are listed in the version options below.

From the Instructor

As an illustrator, designer and Professor, I've developed a scalable system rooted in ideation and the scientific method that has opened opportunities to work across an array of creative and non-creative industries including NASA, Rolling Stone, Luma Pictures, Criterion Collection, New Yorker, United States Postal Service and Major League Baseball.

The world is changing at unprecedented speeds. Artificial Intelligence and new technologies are disrupting every creative industry and artists will have to evolve. We can no longer rely on commissions and studio employment alone. We must learn to create our own opportunities. Discover the value in your own ideas and a process to see them through. Our capacity for creativity deeply inspires me and I do not take your dreams lightly. I've put a great deal of thought and effort into the design of the VISION course and I truly hope that it exceeds your expectations. I want nothing more than for you to find your own creative path.

I'm thrilled to see what you'll make.

Think Louder,

Sterling

Join me on the Think Louder substack for additional writing, demonstrations and articles.