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Ai LIVE: Ai and Samsung Partner for Watch Face Design Class

The Art Institutes is excited to showcase a collaboration with Samsung, offering students the opportunity to gain real-world experience in design and development. Samsung and The Art Institutes first began working together in 2019—and in the past two years, the offering for students has evolved from a one-day workshop into the immersive class. “Emerging Technologies” teaches students how to use existing tools—and no coding—to create usable tech designs.

The partnership is the focus of a recent episode of Ai LIVE, hosted by E. Vincent Martinez. During the segment, Martinez speaks with Diego Rivera, senior developer evangelist at Samsung, about the learning opportunities that the program presents.

Rivera explains that working on Galaxy Watch faces gives budding designers the chance to create an application that could be seen by people in hundreds of countries, via the Samsung Galaxy Store. He states that apps and watch faces don’t have to be complicated—but should always solve a problem. And he adds that the creativity of The Art Institutes’ students is one of the reasons that the partnership between the school and Samsung has been successful.

“We focus on the design side of things, so we saw a clear overlap in what we are doing.” Rivera mentions that Samsung’s design tools take the perceived difficulty of coding out of the equation. “A lot of people have really cool ideas but don’t know where to get the tools. This program provides them.”

The 11-week course, “Emerging Technologies,” is offered at all locations of The Art Institutes. It provides real-world experience and exposure to Samsung’s Galaxy Watch face design as well as the Galaxy Store.

The program is taught by The Art Institutes instructors and utilizes programs including Samsung’s design tools, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator—no coding is required to make Galaxy interactive watch faces. Professionals from Samsung may participate as guest speakers.

As the course progresses, students learn to design, build, and distribute their own watch faces—and get an introduction to the Samsung Galaxy Store, where developers upload finished projects. Participants also gain access to the Samsung Seller Portal to learn tips and tricks for marketing their creations.

Rivera says that the learning environment is supportive—and that students are encouraged to help each other and provide constructive feedback. The collaborative environment, he hopes, will help students to gain the confidence to dig deeper and try to bring new ideas to life.

Want to learn more about creative opportunities in gaming and technology? The Art Institutes offers courses that can help you to build a portfolio of work, based on hands-on learning in our creative community. Contact us to learn more.

You may also learn more about Samsung’s POW! The Samsung Developer Program Podcast. The podcast focuses on engaging, educating, and inspiring designers and developers to succeed with Samsung. Listeners can also hear from Samsung developers talking about the latest tech and new trends: https://samsungdev.buzzsprout.com/