We almost all design, and usually poorly. From PowerPoints & Prezis to social media presences and multimedia academic presentations, we are often required to design materials that are intended to effectively communicate visual information, without the necessary training to do so. Drawing from classical principles to contemporary trends, this workshop-based course instructs students in the fundamental principles of design, including the use of composition, form, counterform, point, line, plane, color, visual rhythm, and typography. Students will apply these principles to then create successful visual communication in a variety of media. Examples are drawn from a variety of different media, including video, animation, still images of designs, paintings, illustrations, photographs, and more. This course will also explore how the mind processes visual information.
This semester everything is made twice: by hand first, then in dialogue with a machine. Fifty cards become booklets, booklets become scans, scans become spreads, and the spreads become publications the whole room makes together. We’ll make a mess, rearrange the mess, then release the mess into the world.
An important part of this will be discussing and analyzing your work through critique and feedback. Going beyond matters of taste and style, we’ll work with the behavior of form, trying to articulate what’s beneath the surface of a work by treating it as a culturally specific, and oftentimes politically loaded visual dialect.
- Instructor: Seth Weiner