This studio course will introduce students to the essential aspects and skills of graphic design, and will analyze and discuss the increasingly vital role that non-verbal, graphic information plays in all areas of professional life, from fine art and book design to social networking and the Internet. Students in the course will explore visual organization through a series of focused, interrelated assignments dealing with composition, page layout, type design, and image. Hands on production will include an array of do-it-yourself printing and distribution technologies, from letterpress and mimeograph to photocopying and websites.
Sample reading list:
Oliver Sacks, A Man of Letters
Robin Kinross, Modern Typography
Beatrice Ward, The Crystal Goblet
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, The New Typography
Herbert Bayer, On Typography
Paul Elliman, My Typographies
Reading/Writing assignments:
This semester will be divided into three parts, each entailing a series of simple mechanical exercises involving students reading and then typsetting parts of what they have read.
