This studio course builds on the skills and concepts of the 200-level Graphic Design classes. VIS 415 is structured around three studio assignments that connect graphic design to other bodies of knowledge, aesthetic experience, and scholarship. The class always takes a local concept or event as the impetus for investigations. This semester we will take New Jersey, as a place and an idea, as a starting point. Studio work is supplemented by critiques, readings and lectures. Students will refine their approaches to information design and visual problem solving, and to decoding and producing graphic design in print and electronic media.
Sample reading list:
Hal Foster, Design and Crime (and Other Diatribes)
Donis A. Dondis and Muriel Cooper, A Primer of Visual Literacy
Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, Design, Writing, Research
Kelly Baum, New Jersey as a Non-Site
Josef Muller-Brockmann, The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems
Nova Caesarea, A Cartographic Record of the Garden State, 1666-1888
Reading/Writing assignments:
Three studio assignments (one every three weeks). Two published pamphlets or books (one at midterm, one at final)
Prerequisites and Restrictions:
VIS 214 Graphic Design; VIS 215 Graphic Design: Typography; VIS 216 Graphic Design: Visual Form; or VIS 217 Graphic Design: Circulation. Not Open to Freshmen.
