Introduction to Class

Assignment #1 'GOOD' AND 'BAD' DESIGNS (Not Graded) due Class #3
Bring in an example of a design that you consider 'good' and one you consider 'bad'. Since our concept of 'good' varies considerably according to taste, mood, age, etc., this is an exercise in search of common attributes of good design. The designs you choose may be a still frame of a film, a front page of a website, a CD cover, a flyer, a logo, etc. We will go over these in class and each student will briefly discuss (around a minute) why they consider their designs 'good' and 'bad'.

Assignment #2 IMAGE ARCHIVE due Last Week of Class
Build an archive of digital images that strike you in some way as interesting, repulsive, inspiring, etc. as you conduct online research or take reference photographs. By the end of the semester you should have a very robust and rich archive. It should be organized in a folder structure that is easy for you to quickly access images when needed. Folders such as film stills, TV stills, nature, food ads, fashion, music-related, propaganda, cheesy, technological, etc are some obvious ones. This section can include a list of links to pertinent websites if you wish.

Reading Introduction and Real-World Compositions
Krause: 8-37 due Class #2

Reading Connotation of Visual Forms (Living the Line)
McCloud: 118-137 due Class #2

Introduction to Basic Visual Design Principles

Defining:

Design
Art
Visual Gestalt
Composition
---Introduction to Elements

Assignment #3 96 COMPOSITION THUMBNAILS due Class #5
Create 96 black and white compositions roughly measuring Phi (1 x 1.6 inches). You will be graded in how consistently you can create various and interesting compositions. The compositions will be abstract representations of topics. 64 of these should be digital compositions. These will include 8 categories with 8 examples of each: weak, strong, slow, fast, synthetic, natural, family, and software. Use the Photoshop template provided. The remaining 36 may be sketched, inked out, cut out, etc, whichever materials you prefer, but should not be digital. There are 4 categories: chaos, order, war, and peace. There should be 8 examples of each totaling 32. Try to minimize the use of grayscale and keep the values true black and true white in all of the compositions.

Assignment #4 IDEA BOOK due Last Week of Class
Obtain a sketchbook at least 8.5 x 11 inches, tape and your choice of drawing materials, ink or paint -whichever you like. As the complement to the Image Archive the Idea Book is where you experiment, doodle, sketch, collage and test out ideas. Its highest value is that it records ideas that you can't or wont use immediately but that might be applicable to a design challenge down the road.

Briefly Critique 'Good' and 'Bad' Designs

Introduction to Photoshop

Reading Typography
Krause: 230-267 due Class #4

Reading Type and Image (Show and Tell)
McCloud: 138-161 due Class #4

Critique 96 COMPOSITION THUMBNAILS

Introduction to Illustrator

Reading Shape Workshop and Icons
Krause: 124-169 due Class #6

Reading Introduction and Icons
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: 1-59 due Class #6

Illustrator Workshop

Assignment #5 LOGO due Class #8
Create a digital black and white logo. It can represent a business, organization, website or you personally. Make sure its at least 150 dpi. 50 diverse and interesting thumbnail sketches you created in the process are due along with the final logo. Although you may create and present a color version for the critique you must also present a black and white version from which your grade will be determined.

Reading Creative Process
Krause: 322-341 due Class #7

Holiday - No Class

Discuss the Reading

Workday

Critique LOGOS

Reading Color
Krause: 206-329 due Class #9

Reading Color (A Word About Color)
McCloud: 185-192 due Class #9

Critique LOGOS

Assignment #6 PINBALL GAME due Class #13
Design a pinball game using the top, or isometric view. The composition should neatly fit within 8.5 by 11 inches. Your color palette is your choice of split complements (if you forget check the Krause book for an explanation) and any of their shades or tints (mixing white or black into them). You can also mix them with each other. You can use Photoshop or Illustrator.

Color Theory

Color Palettes

Color and Light
--- Impressionism

Digital Concerns
---CMYK
---RBG
---Monitor vs. Printing

Synesthesia
---Kiki and Booba
---Wassily Kandinsky

Workday

Reading Psychological Closure (Blood in the Gutter)
McCloud: 60-93 due Class #12

Reading The Consciousness of Consciousness
Jaynes: 21-47 due Class #12
---Bring to class on Monday at least several ideas on how the concepts Jaynes presents apply to how we perceive and react to visual designs. Things to consider: advertising, film, MTV, animation etc. The McCloud reading, Blood in the Gutter, will provide some solid examples and leads you could possibly build on.

Discuss the Reading

Workday

Critique PINBALL GAME

Reading Elements and Images
Krause: 170-201 due Class #14

Critique PINBALL GAME

Assignment #7 PROPAGANDA OR ADVERTISING POSTER Part II due Class #16
Design the final version in a composition measuring 8.5 by 11 inches using any material you wish, colored pencil, Photoshop, Illustrator, acrylic paint, etc. Digital versions should be at least 150 dpi.

Reading Concept
Krause: 276-321 due Class #15

Reading Sequential Art
McCloud: 193-215 due Class #15

Discuss Reading

Art of the Image
---Propaganda Posters
---Advertising Posters

Design
Photography
Film

Film Semiotics
---Frame
---Subject

Point of View
Staging
--- Frame as Camera View

Lighting in Film
---Chiaroscuro
---Sin City
---Citizen Kane

Workday

BRING IN YOUR RESUME FOR A CRITIQUE (not graded) due Class #20
Print them out and get a digital version ready as well. Don't miss this opportunity for a critique of one of your most important designs. You can also bring in anything else that represents you professionally, business cards, stationary, etc.

Resume Day!!! (ungraded)

Reading Practices of Looking
Chapter 1
Sturken: 10-42 due Class #18

Discuss the Reading

Critique PROPAGANDA OR ADVERTISING POSTER

Critique PROPAGANDA OR ADVERTISING POSTER

Working with Non-Digital Materials

Caricature Artists
---Arcimboldo
---Piven
---Scarfe
---Dada
---Cubism

Logistics
---Assemblages
---Armatures
---Adhesives
---Materials

Paint
---Watercolor
---Gouache
---Acrylic
---Oil
---Techniques
---Materials

Modernism
---Futurists
---Cubists

Post Modernism
---Dada

Assignment #8 CARICATURE ASSEMBLAGE due Class #22
Design and construct an Assembled Caricature of a Celebrity. You must integrate at least one found object and you must create at least one element yourself, for example painting a stroke on the found object. Your caricature should measure larger than 8 inches by 8 inches and smaller than 2 feet by 2 feet. Take an evenly lit digital picture of the finished caricature, that is what you'll e-mail to me after the critique. But you must bring into class the physical finished caricature for critique. Gather several images of your famous person, print them out and have them ready at the critique as well.

Reading Viewers Make Meaning
Sturken: 45-70 due Class #23

Critique PROPAGANDA OR ADVERTISING POSTER

Critique CARICATURE ASSEMBLAGE

Critique CARICATURE ASSEMBLAGE

Holiday - No Class

Grid Layout

Grid Layout (cont'd)

Discuss the Reading

Assignment #9 WEBSITE due Class #33
The nature of the website is your choice, be it personal, business, political, etc. You will be graded on how the visual design facilitates interest and functionality. You must clearly state what your goals are for the website in the mid-project critique including who your target audience is and how you intend for them to interpret your design and content.

Reading Sequentiality (Time Frames)
McCloud: 94-117 due Class #28

Reading Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge
Sturken: 72-106 due Class #28

Intro to Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver Workshop and Workday

Discuss the Reading

Website Analysis

Designing for Interactivity
---Dynamic vs. Static Design

Intro Pages

Navigation
---Expectations

Buttons
Links
Menu Bars
Consistency

Critique Professional HTML and Flash Sites
---Don't Click

Interactive Preproduction Flowcharts

Reading Reproduction and Visual Technologies
Sturken: 109-149 due Class #29

Reading The Art of Innovation (chapter 4) Lessons in Creativity from IDEO due Class #29

Discuss the Reading

Workday

Mid Project Critique of WEBSITE
(In this critique we're simply looking at the design and content of your website, so it doesn't have to be completely functional yet.)

Mid Project Critique of WEBSITE
(In this critique we're simply looking at the design and content of your website, so it doesn't have to be completely functional yet.)

Reading Craft and Vision (The Six Steps)
McCloud: 162-184 due Class #32

Discuss the Reading

Workday

Critique WEBSITE

Critique WEBSITE

Reading The Mass Media and the Public Sphere
Sturken: 151-186 due Class #36

Discuss the Reading

Converging Design as Function
---Visual Thesaurus

Design as an Obstruction to Function
---Challenger Disaster

Visual Explanations
---Tufte

Mosaics of Information
---News Channels
---News Websites
---Web Navigation
---Videogames
------Armored Core

Illustration Design
---Scientific
---Spiritual

Assignment #10 FREESTYLE PROJECT. Part I due Class #38
The nature of this final design assignment is entirely up to you, but you must use interactivity. You will pitch your idea to the class next week. You must prepare sketches, concept art, source art, source information, flowcharts and your choice of color palette. Subject to approval you will develop your pitch into a finished product due at the end of the semester. Group projects are acceptable, but are subject to approval. Remember that the quality and quantity of work expected of a project increases exponentially with each additional student involved -thus it is advisable to group two opposing talents together, such as a more artistic or literary student with a hardcore programmer.

Emotional Heart of Art Direction
---Chris Klug

Editing
---Kuleshov Effect in Film
---Eisenstein
---Kuleshov Effect in Interactivity

Fight Scenes of the Past, Present and Future
---The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
---The Bourne Identity

History of Memory
---Memory 'Hooks'
---Pleasure and pain
---Memes
---L. Ron Hubbard
---Spatial Memory

Reading Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire
Sturken: 189-235 due Class #38

Workday and Discussion of Projects

Pitch and Critique of FREESTYLE PROJECT PITCHES

Assignment #10 Implement Your Pitched Project Subject to Approval. Part II due Class #44
Make changes to your plan as required by the instructor and complete your project. A second round of pitches next week may be necessary for some projects.

Workday

Reading Balance and Motion
Loomings: 107-124 due Class #40

Reading The Simpson's Way
Brad Bird: 1-4 due Class #40

Pitch and Critique of FREESTYLE PROJECT PITCHES

Discuss the Reading

Animation Basics

Brief History of Animation
---John Lasseter Applies 2D Principles to 3D!

Pixelation
---Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb

12 Animation Principles
--- Personality

Example Animation Critique

Videogame vs. Film Animation

Reading Postmodernism and Popular Culture
Sturken: 237-277 due Class #40

Discuss the Reading

Intro to 3D Modeling, Texturing, Lighting and Rendering

Demo Reels

Workday

Workday

Reading Scientific Looking, Looking at Science
Sturken: 279-313 due Class #43

Critique FREESTYLE PROJECTS

Critique FREESTYLE PROJECTS

Turn in IMAGE ARCHIVE

Turn in IDEA BOOK

Critique FREESTYLE PROJECTS