🍂 Fall 2023 Electives 🍂

Monday
Typographic Multiverse
1:10pm–6:10pm / Pouya Ahmadi / Building on a collection of texts at the intersection of language, identity, and societal conditioning, this course examines the extent to which typography can engage in world building and the production and dissemination of proposals for alternative systems. Through a series of parallel assignments including reading, writing, and making, we will individually and collectively explore different strategies and mediums through which we can activate a multitude of voices and approaches that comprise our complex world of many worlds.
Experimental Typography for Extended Realities
1:10pm–6:10pm / Livia Foldes / As our interfaces expand beyond their familiar boundaries, what new conceptual and expressive opportunities will emerge for written communication? Visions for “extended realities” are too often defined and constrained by big tech, with typography relegated to “clean” interfaces and chat boxes. This hands-on studio course imagines alternatives by exploring the affordances (and unruly glitches) of digital type beyond the rectangle. Combining interaction, motion, and experimental typography, we will play with type in emerging media contexts, from the cutting edge of variable web fonts to augmented and virtual realities. Over the course of workshops and larger projects, we will draw on diverse sources—including sci-fi, avant garde art and design histories, and critical texts—to develop strategies for merging type, tech, and language in new ways. Basic familiarity with HTML and CSS is recommended, but not required.
Design in the Posthuman Age
1:10pm–6:10pm / Anastasiia Raina / In this class, we will explore our contemporary condition through visual-research based projects around self-design, speculative design and design fiction. We will use graphic design as a medium to ask questions about ethical concerns emerging from advancements in science and technology. We will develop a new design vernacular incorporating ideas from revolutionary recent developments in genetics, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. We will employ machine vision: microscopy, neuroimaging and NASA archives to create new fictional worlds in concert with the life forms around and inside us. This engagement with the sciences will allow us as graphic designers to acquire some fundamental tools that probe fundamental human nature, and help us navigate the posthuman epoch that lies ahead.
Tuesday
unMaking Studio
1:10pm–6:10pm / Ramon Tejada / How do designers respond, think about and make for equitable futures? How much do we need to scrap or throw under the proverbial bus (ourselves included)? Unmaking studio is a space that explores possibilities through collaborative experimentation and reflection on how we can design in pluralistic ways. We will intentionally break habits, structures, tools, methods, and models of thought that have become canonized as the way to make Graphic Design. Along the way, we will experiment, at times in collaboration, with a series of prompts that explore analog and digital outcomes — forms, images, stories, languages, publications, the unknown, the emergent — thinking about the stories our work tells about ourselves (our lineages, our choices, and our values), our communities, and how all of this has the potential to radically and joyfully shift how we engage as human beings.
Motion, Sound, Vision
1:10pm–6:10pm / Rafael Attias / This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of motion graphics, as well as the implementation of video, and sound design. Students will learn a variety of motion graphics software, such as Adobe After Effects and Premier, as well as studio tools like Ableton Live, and/or other audio-visual programs. Students will learn how to capture, manipulate, mix and optimize audio visual material for final production and implementation. Through a series of in-class and multi-week assignments, students will create animated projects that include motion design real-world assignments, as well as experimental exercises, with the goal of exploring intersections between graphic design, story telling, visual composition, and the realms of rhythm and sound. Adobe After Effects will be the primary production tool for this class. Each student will propose a long term project, this project will be developed throughout the semester and presented as the final project for the class. In addition to our software tutorials, there will be a series of short weekly lectures to review specific histories, and also current practitioners who are using motion graphics and sound to create works in the worlds of design, fine art, and performance.
Grad Elective
1:10pm–6:10pm / Tues / TBD
Graphic Design for the Web
1:10pm–6:10pm / Minkyoung Kim / This course will explore the possibilities of design online from a conceptual, historical, and programmatic perspective. The class celebrates the Internet as a space for social exchange and independent expression, while questioning the cultural contradictions embedded in online discourse and the motivations of individuals and entities behind online platforms. Through projects, readings, workshops, and presentations we will explore the relevance of network technologies in the context of contemporary art and design practices. Students will learn basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript along with methods for conceptualizing, designing, and developing websites. Outcomes won't necessary be practical, nor pragmatically functional. Instead we will strive for a poetic understanding of design and the Internet as mediums for critical research and action.
Motion, Sound, Vision
1:10pm–6:10pm / Rafael Attias / This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of motion graphics, as well as the implementation of video, and sound design. Students will learn a variety of motion graphics software, such as Adobe After Effects and Premier, as well as studio tools like Ableton Live, and/or other audio-visual programs. Students will learn how to capture, manipulate, mix and optimize audio visual material for final production and implementation. Through a series of in-class and multi-week assignments, students will create animated projects that include motion design real-world assignments, as well as experimental exercises, with the goal of exploring intersections between graphic design, story telling, visual composition, and the realms of rhythm and sound. Adobe After Effects will be the primary production tool for this class. Each student will propose a long term project, this project will be developed throughout the semester and presented as the final project for the class. In addition to our software tutorials, there will be a series of short weekly lectures to review specific histories, and also current practitioners who are using motion graphics and sound to create works in the worlds of design, fine art, and performance.
Wednesday
Package Graphics
11:20am–4:20pm / Aki Nurosi / This is a course in designing and identifying graphic communication for packaging structures. We will experiment with different 3D templates, examining their structures and then using type, color and images on these prototypes in three dimensions. Experimentation with different materials is also explored while addressing the client's brief and the design rational; being conscious of the target market, place of sale and the price.
Thursday
Brand Identity Design
8:00am–1:00pm / Richard Rose / Designing an identity and identity system is a critical skill practiced by today’s designers. In this course, students will create two identity systems: one for an arts organization and one for a socially constructive campaign. While a traditional identity system is defined as a logo and a set of rules for governing that logo's application across a range of media, the goal of this class is to expand upon the ways an identity can be conceived through the manipulation of language, materials, and audience expectation/participation.
Type Design
8:00am–1:00pm / Richard Lipton / This elective is an opportunity for students to immerse themselves in the process of designing a typeface; to consider all the design decisions that are a part of this creative exercise, and to learn the finer points of letter structures and systems, serif and sans, spacing, kerning, and all the other details of execution which turn a roughly-formed idea into a more complete, rigorous and polished digital design. This course will provide a fundamental understanding of how typefaces work in addition to understanding a tool that can further your design goals.
Newly Formed
1:10pm–6:10pm / Thurs / Kathleen Sleboda; Chris Sleboda / Newly Formed focuses on advanced composition in graphic design and typography using an array of materials, techniques and formats. Each year, the class is reframed and remade, formed again for the newest cohort of students. Emphasis is placed on experimental form-making/image-making using generative and iterative approaches, with a core principle being that form need not follow function and that knowledge can be acquired from a process-based approach to design. Studio assignments are supported by lectures showing contemporary graphic form, from historical to contemporary work, which are meant to inspire and be sites for response. This elective aims to build a collection of work that can be shared with the larger graphic design community.
Friday
Virtual Space and Interactivity with Unity 3D
1:10pm–6:10pm / Ed Brown / This course will lead students through the entire game design process, from sketch to publishing, in both 2D and 3D. Students will be introduced to Unity 3D, software that creates interactive designs and publishes them as desktop, web, and mobile applications. The course will also consider media theory and address video games' influence on our culture. Topics to be covered will include: analog and digital history of games; their ritualistic and symbolic origins; their use in contemporary art; an analysis of gaming subcultures; an analysis of the male gaze, hyper masculinity and violence in commercial gaming; a critique of the lack of diversity in the game development workforce; video games' influence on other mass media; and their role in how we perceive the world around us. There will be special focus on the graphic designer's role in a professional game development team. Once familiar with the Unity environment, the course will open up to other kinds of interactive software including AR and VR mobile applications. Unity 3D is free to use. There are no prerequisites but experience with 3D modeling is desired.
Workshops
Workshop: Risograph
8am–1pm / Fri / Lucy Hitchcock / This workshop will use the ideas from Risograph (RISO) printing to combine practical pre-press skills, encouraging experimentation formmaking. The aim of this introduction workshop is to teach students to consider the craft and value of well-planned files to produce high-quality outputs that can be replicated and shared. Students will work within a series of technical constraints that will require creative solutions as well as an understanding of this particular printing process, color, paper, and file preparation.
Workshop: Letterpress & Inkjet
1:10pm–6:10pm / Fri / Lois Harada / From Letterpress to Inkjet: this workshop will offer the students a unique opportunity to connect the dots. Two technologies more than 500 years apart will inspire the students in finding either harmony or discord. Neither is proven wrong. Students will be introduced to the Type Shop through the techniques and procedures for setting and printing metal and wood type on the Vandercook proofing presses. Engaging in this historic craft, newly developed skills will be transformed into contemporary results. The students will unite the digital with the analog technology, for example by feeding a letterpress print through the inkjet plotter or to digitize hot metal type. The options are endless. Specifications on paper selection will be discussed and samples of letterpressed books will be shown for inspiration. Any such targeted integration of science and art goes beyond the sheer structural and aesthetic qualities of given "product." But as regards graphic design "product," it must contain the conscious integration of the human factor, technology, and aesthetics to prove effective.
Workshop: Photo & Lighting
1:10–6:10pm / Fri / Tom Wedell / This workshop is an introduction to the methods involved in studio photography for designers with an emphasis on lighting-bringing objects to life by articulating their shapes and surfaces with various lighting sources: soft/hard, direct/reflected, focused/diffused, etc. Additional attention will be given to digital file preparation and printing. Throughout this workshop, students will explore the use of DSLR cameras, lenses, exposure meters, and related equipment to create original images of selected 3D objects.
Workshop: Screenprinting
1:10pm–6:10pm / Fri / Tycho Horan / This workshop will focus on establishing a basic understanding of a variety of screen printing techniques and how to make use of those techniques in your work. Through in-class demos and out-of-class assignments, this workshop will encourage experimentation with screens and ink. The class will start with simple paper stencils and move quickly into making screens from images and text generated digitally.
Workshop: Web Programming
8am–1:00pm / Fri / Gabriel Drozdov / This workshop will use the processing programming language to introduce students to programming concepts. Students will not only learn the fundamentals of the processing language but will research contemporary working methods around programming and explore the ways in which algorithms affect the design process. The aim of this workshop is for students to develop procedural literacy and to open their design work to indeterminacy, interactivity, generative processes, participatory working methods, and new opportunities afforded by technology in general.