OVERVIEW

Visual design is concerned with the invention of useful and beautiful products that mediate and facilitate communication. At its full potential, it has the ability to teach, to please, and to move. Communication is not a problem newly discovered in our time. However, the understanding of the problems of communication and methods of inquiry for arriving at appropriate media strategies have become increasingly important in the contemporary culture. The need for effective communication is evident once we consider the wide presence and impact of digital and non-digital products in our everyday experiences. Examples span a wide range: from road signs to memes, product advertisements to political campaigns.

The purpose of this course is to lay a foundation for better understanding communication that’s mediated by visual artifacts as well as the methods of designing effective communication strategies. To this end, we will begin with a brief introduction to the grammar of visual design. We will look at the elements that make up the vocabulary of visual communication such as line, space, color, images, and type. In addition, we will study the principles of composition that bind these elements to create a unified whole. After this study, we will focus on understanding visual communication from three philosophic perspectives. More specifically, we examine three dominant paradigms of communication and explore how they might serve as Topoi for criticism and invention of media products. We will wrap up with a discussion of design ethics and politics and the role and function of criticism and conversation as strategies of inquiry. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Understand philosophic foundations of visual design and communication.
• Understand information design artifacts as reasoned and persuasive arguments that are audience specific and situated.
• Use the theories and topics presented in this course to identify the problems and analyze the issues of information artifacts and digital media in the respective rhetorical and problematic contexts.
• Create digital artifacts with an awareness of history, respect and sensitivity to multiple and diverse audiences, and justice to the social and cultural contexts.

READINGS

Required

• Lupton, Ellen. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs). New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.

Recommended

• Carter, Rob, Philip Meggs, and Ben Day. Typographic Design: Form & Communication. (2002)

Supplementary

• Dewey, John. Art as Experience. (1934)
• Meggs, Philip B. Type & Image: The Language of Graphic Design. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992.
• Müller-Brockmann, Josef. A History of Visual Communication: From the Dawn of Barter in the Ancient World to the Visualized Conception of Today. (1971)
• Dawn of Barter in the Ancient World to the Visualized Conception of Today. (1971)
• Nelson, George. How to See. (2006)
• Taylor, Joshua C., Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts. (1981)
• Wurman, Richard Saul. Information Anxiety. (1989)