Course Overview

Fundamentals of Imagemaking

1. Images and Denotation

• Imagemaking basics, denotative imagemaking

2. Imagemaking techniques

• Different imagemaking techniques, imagemaking process, generation, iteration, explorations in imagemaking

• Practical demo: printing with an object, duct tape prints, improvised "light table"

3. Images and Connotation

• Connotative imagemaking, making meaning out of images

Fundamentals of Typography

1. Intro and overview

• Facebook (connections, media)

2. The lexicon of letters

• Anatomy of letters, words and spacing, type size: point system, typesetting text

3. How to choose a typeface

• Typefaces, fonts and type families, typeface categories

4. How to read "typography"

• Denotation and connotation in type, character of characters

5. How to use a typeface

• Looking at letterforms, experimentation, typographic composition, making monogram and business card

Fundamentals of Shape and Color

1. Intro and overview

2. Shape and color

• Graphic shapes, visual contrast, negative/positive (complementary/contrasting), figure/ground

• Marks, icons, and symbols

• Working with color, color wheel, mixing colors for paint, print, and screen

3. Rhythm and pattern

• Rhythm and pattern, repeating patterns

Fundamentals of Composition

1. Intro and overview

2. All about contrast

• Visual contrasts, single or multiple contrasts, type contrasts, image contrasts

3. Working with images

• Composition in a single image, cropping and hierarchy

4. Putting it all together

• Composition in context, applying fundamentals 

5. Conclusion

Talking Type

1. Intro and overview

2. What is Type?

• Font versus Typeface

3. Describing and measuring type

• Reviewing key type terms, stroke and proportion, type anatomy, measuring type

4. Choosing type

• Choosing a typeface

Typefaces and their Stories

1. From humanism to rationalism

• Prepare yourself, typefaces and their stories

• Examples: Bembo, Didot

2. The modern era

• Examples: Clarendon, Futura, Helvetica

3. Type today

• Examples: Scala Sans

Putting Type to Work

1. Type in space

• Working with type, typographic space, page space, the grid

2. Typographic hierarchy

• Creating hierarchy

3. Rules and conventions

• Typographic conventions

Making Meaningful Type

1. Expressive typography

• Making meaningful type, typesetting with expression, meaning beyond typesetting

2. Bringing it all together

• The typographic poster

Image-based Research

1. About this course

2. Essential skills

• Design practice, forms of practice, critiqueing

3. Visual research

• What images do, considering the book, visual research, making mood board

Making Images

1. Experiment and improv

• Imagemaking methods, techniques, and materials

• Working with style, mood and attitude, explain and illustrate

2. Images and meaning

• Denotation and connotation, tangible, sensory and expressive quality of materials and line

3. Representational strategies

• Range of Representation

Composition is Relational

1. Composition and arrangement

• Composition is relational

2. Using hierarchy

• About hierarchy, scale, space, figure/ground

3. More compositional strategies

• Narrative, creating page spreads, compositional iterations

Designing a Book with Your Images

1. Bookishness

• Bookishness, putting your book together, surprise in your layouts

2. Looking at books

• Looking at various books, list of image-based books

3. Laying out a book in InDesign

• Setting up your document, exporting spreads, printing the book

4. Laying out a book by hand

• Making thumbnail sketches, copies in multiple sizes, creating spreads, printer's spreads, assembling spreads

5. Assembling a book by hand

• Two simple bookbinding techniques

Early Mass Marketing

1. Welcome and introduction

2. The victorian era

• Early mass marketing, form following function

• Democratization of choice, revival of styles, style mash-up

3. Victorian typography

• Exaggeration of type, wood type

4. The age of advertising

• Branding, making a household name, text and image that work

The Bauhaus

1. Introduction

2. The Bauhaus (1919-33)

• Founding the Bauhaus, foundation year, Bauhaus and architecture

3. Key figures

• Klee, Schlemmer, Albers, Moholy-Nagy, and Bayer

4. Design form

• Color & image, textiles & ceramics, typography, publications

Modernism in America

1. Introduction

2. Lester Beall

• Bauhaus influence, symbolic language, developing corporate identities

3. Alvin Lustig

• A new subjectivity

4. Paul Rand

• Play & humor, duality & simplicity, logo designs

5. William Golden

• A clear identity

Graphic Design Radicalism

1. Introduction

2. Swiss design

• Objectivity of swiss design, incorporating abstraction, four-color printing, the grid, compositional strategies

3. Pushpin

• Subjectivity of push pin, “The south”

4. Psychedelics and the diggers

• Psychedelic posters and their past, psychedelic effects, the Diggers, Gestetner printing machine

5. Sister Corita Kent

• Sister Corita’s aesthetics & politics, screen printing