Course Description

In this studio course, we embark on an immersive journey into the core principles and expansive possibilities of graphic design. Through a rich blend of projects, readings, discussions, in-class exercises, presentations, and guest lectures, you will engage with the essential elements of design, from shape and color to contrast, hierarchy, scale, material, imagery, and typography, while also exploring the discipline’s historical roots and contemporary practices. We view graphic design as a powerful medium for translation, transforming various materials, surfaces, and technologies into compelling visual communications that not only convey meaning but also stimulate critical thought.

As you progress through the course, you will hone your practical skills to create and manipulate these fundamental elements, developing a unique body of work that reflects your individual vision. At the same time, you will delve into key historical moments and theoretical frameworks, such as neutrality, universality, and tradition, that have shaped the field. This iterative process of creation and critique is designed to deepen your technical proficiency and enrich your conceptual understanding, equipping you with the vocabulary and critical thinking skills necessary for continued exploration and professional growth in graphic design.

Attendance

Attendance is essential. Three or more absences will result in a failing grade. Three or more late arrivals (more than 10 minutes late) will count as an absence. If you absolutely must miss class, email me in ADVANCE not the day of. Emailing me on the day of class to excuse yourself for any reason will still affect your 25% Participation and Diligence of your final grade.

Assessment

Grades will be assigned according to the rubric below and will factor into the course grade:

  • 20% - Project 1 (Composing Space(s))
  • 20% - Project 2 (Found Poster)
  • 20% - Project 3 (Film Invite)
  • 20% - Project 4 (Collecting)
  • 10% - Assignments
  • 10% - Participation and Diligence

Schedule


Week 1
Wednesday August 27
  • Syllabus Overview
  • Class website walkthrough
  • Introductions
  • lecture: I'm a Graphic Designer
Week 2
Wednesday September 3
  • Friction in Methods Exercise 1
  • Begin Composing Space(s) assignment (choose / visit / describe spaces)
Friday September 5
  • Present space chosen for Composing Space(s) assignment
  • Working on Composing Space(s) Part 1

For Next Week:

Week 3
Wednesday September 10
  • Class tools and materials distributed
  • Demo: Inkscape
Friday September 12
  • Composing Space(s) Part 1 due
  • Demo: Illustrator

For Next Week:

Week 4
Wednesday September 17
  • Reading discussion
  • Critique: Composing Space(s) Part 1 and Part 2
  • For Friday: Composing Space(s) Part 3
Friday September 19
  • Critique: Composing Space(s) Part 3
  • Lecture: Photocopying

For Next Week:

Week 5
Wednesday September 24
  • Reading discussion
  • Critique: Composing Space(s) Part 4

  • Exercise:
    For our next class, choose a piece of graphic design that you personally consider the best-designed material ever. Print it out (or otherwise reproduce it) at its original scale so we can look at it together.

    Be prepared to answer the following questions about your selection:
    1. Why this one? – What makes it, in your view, the "best"?
    2. Success – In what ways is it successful at doing what it was meant to do?
    3. Distinctiveness – What sets it apart from other designs?
    4. Process – How was it designed (consider tools, methods, or context)?
    5. Authorship – Who designed it?
Friday September 26
  • Presentation: Best-Designed Piece Exercise

For Next Week:

Week 6
Wednesday October 1
  • Reading discussion
  • Studio
  • Found Poster assignment
Friday October 3
  • Lecture: Typography
  • Found Poster: Come to class ready to present selected poster
  • Studio: Develop 5 variations of found poster

For Next Week:

Week 7
Wednesday October 8
  • Screening: Short film pieces for Film Invite assignment
  • Slide: Film Invite
Friday October 10
  • Class visit to Brandford College Press

For Next Week:

  • *Film Invite Part 1

October Recess


Week 8
Wednesday October 22
  • Critique: Found Poster
  • Critique: Film Invite Part 1
Friday October 24
  • Demo: InDesign
  • Working on Film Invite Part 2

For Next Week:

Week 9
Wednesday October 29
  • Reading discussion
  • Working on Film Invite Part 2 & Part 3
Friday October 31
  • Critique: Film Invite Part 2 & Part 3
  • Lecture: Collecting
  • For after Spring Recess: Collecting-Documenting assignment (2 ideas for visual collection)

For Next Week:

Week 10
Wednesday November 5
  • Reading discussion
  • Present 2 ideas for visual collection
  • Lecture: Documenting
Friday November 7
  • Working on documenting collection

For Next Week:

Week 11
Wednesday November 12
  • Reading discussion
  • Present 2 different methods of documentation
  • Working on documenting collection
Friday November 14
  • Critique: Collecting-Documenting

For Next Week:

Week 12
Wednesday November 19
  • Reading discussion
  • Lecture: Looking at Books
  • Working on sketches and mockups of booklet
Friday November 21
  • Working on proof of booklet

November Recess


Week 13
Wednesday December 3
  • 1-on-1 check-ins
  • Working on proof of booklet
Friday December 5
  • Present proof of booklet
Week 14
Wednesday December 10
  • 1-on-1 check-ins
  • Prepare for Final Review
Friday December 12
  • Final Review with guest critic TBC
  • By Friday December 15: Upload documentation of work to class archive

Readings

Throughout the course, you will engage with “reading packets”, groups of three to four short readings designed to expand, inform, and contextualize your assignments. These selections lean more toward the conceptual and contextual aspects of graphic design, drawing on both historical and contemporary sources, rather than focusing solely on technical instruction. Each packet will serve as the basis for in-class discussions, to which everyone is expected to contribute.


What is Design? / What is a Designer?
Design History / Design Research
Typography / Reading
Collecting / Collections
Collating / Books / Materiality

Assignments

Friction in Methods

These projects are about process, not polish. At the end of each class, you'll get a single-task prompt, something small, direct, and maybe even uncomfortable. Don't spend more than 20 minutes on these exercises, and the only rule is that every outcome should take the form of a letter-sized poster.

Think of these as experiments, not finished works. They're meant to push you out of habits, create a little friction in how you normally make, and show you how different constraints, tools, or gestures can lead to unexpected results. Over time, these quick exercises will build into a collection of approaches, a record of methods, accidents, and discoveries that you can draw from in your practice.

  • Exercise 1: Take a short walk around campus and find a piece of graphic design that catches your attention — a sign, flyer, poster, logo, or anything that communicates visually. Your task is to make a quick poster by drawing a representation of it with your non-dominant hand. Don't worry about accuracy; the goal is to pay attention, slow down your looking, and let the awkwardness of your hand create unexpected marks and forms.
  • Exercise 2: Pick a recognizable object from your surroundings and draw its silhouette as a flat, solid shape. Then, with a single disruptive gesture — a line, mark, smear, cut, or distortion — alter the silhouette until the object becomes illegible. The aim is to transform something ordinary and familiar into something strange, forcing the recognizable to slip into abstraction.
Composing Space(s)

Choose a space on or around campus that you have easy access to. Observe, study and listen to the space you choose to work with, write a short description of the sounds you hear in this space, use only notes and language (no photographs).

Part 1: Using the provided exercise sheets, fill in unit squares using pencil to make expressive compositions of your descriptions of the sounds of your chosen space.

Part 2: Create 4 new compositions expressing the sounds of your space using 6 2 × 1 inch black paper rectangles on sheets of white museum board measuring 9.5 × 6.5 inches. Any 1 composition should be landscape-oriented while any 3 should be vertical-oriented. You must use all 6 black rectangles per composition. Rectangles can be placed anywhere on the page either horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. They cannot overlap or bleed (extend beyond the edge of the page). Avoid direct figuration or representation and remember to keep working abstractly.

Note: Good craft is important as it impacts the meaning of your compositions.

Part 3: Create 4 new compositions expressing the sounds of your space this time using only straight lines of any size and weight. No diagonals. Make your compositions on the computer with Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator, in black and white and on 8.5 × 11 inches. Any 1 composition should be landscape-oriented while any 3 should be vertical-oriented. Print them at scale and bring them to class. You do not need to mount the paper on the museum board.

Part 4: Using your Part 3 compositions, create 4 new compositions that explore the possibilities of the photocopier as a tool. You may overlay compositions by copying them, enlarging, cropping, playing with tonal changes and more. Explore widely and try different approaches. Your new compositions should be made using standard letter-size paper (8.5 × 11 inches), in black and white, vertical orientation only. You do not need to mount the paper on the museum board.

Found Poster

Walk around campus and find a letter or tabloid-size flyer that is of interest to you. (It can announce an upcoming lecture or performance, advertise a service, recruit participants for an experiment, etc.) Take a photo of it or, if you can, grab a copy. Do some research to find out everything you can about what the flyer does, who made it, and who it’s for.

After spending time with your chosen flyer and considering its hierarchy of information, redesign it to make it more evocative, expressive, or clear as a black and white 11 × 17 inch vertical poster.

This assignment is to be done by hand, through collage and with the help of the photocopier. Deconstruct the original flyer (if you have a photo, print it out) by making copies of it, cutting parts out to enlarge or downsize them, cropping, and manipulating elements in different ways as you see fit. Experiment and try new things. Glue your elements onto an 11 × 17 inch sheet of paper to make your poster and photocopy this to make a flat 11 × 17 inch final version to bring to class.

Film Invite

In class we will watch a selection of short film pieces. Choose one of these films to work with and design an invite for its screening. The invite should include the following (how you word, order, organise, arrange, break-up, repeat, or add to this information is up to you):

  • Film title
  • Name of director / artist
  • Date of screening (today): Thursday February 22, 2024
  • Location of screening (here): Yale School of Art, Green Hall, Room 210
  • Time (now): 8.25am

Pay close attention to how you translate the motion, pacing, sequencing, cuts, sound, tone, volume, expressive quality, feeling, atmosphere of the film into a static typographically focused invite.

Part 1: The invite must be designed with Google Docs, and be A5-sized (5.83 × 8.27 inches), landscape or portrait, in black and white and type only. You may use either Times New Roman or Arial, in 1 weight and 1 size. Design 3 different iterations of the invite, bring to class printed to scale and also export and email a pdf to the instructor for the start of class.

Part 2: The invite must be designed with Adobe InDesign, and be 1-sided, 5 × 8 inches dimensions, landscape or portrait, in black and white and purely typographic. You may only use 1 typeface (from the selection of: Akzidenz Grotesk, Century Schoolbook, Plantin, Univers (typeface files will be supplied)), in 1 weight, at a maximum of 2 point sizes. Design 3 different iterations of the invite, export them as a pdf and email to instructor for the start of class.

Part 3: The invite must be designed with Adobe InDesign, and be 2-sided, 5 × 8 inches dimensions (landscape or portrait), in black and white, using type and screenshots / stills from the film. You may only use 1 typeface (from the selection of: Akzidenz Grotesk, Century Schoolbook, Plantin, Univers (typeface files will be supplied)), in 1 weight, at a maximum of 2 point sizes. Design a further 3 different iterations of the invite. For this part also consider the weight, colour, texture, feel, tactility of the paper stock on which it is printed. Bring to class printed to scale, trimmed to crop marks on a selected paper stock.

Collecting-Documenting

Part 1: Paying close attention to the objects and world around you, come up with 2 ideas for a visual collection of 32 specimens.

Part 2: Incorporating feedback from class, commit to a collection subject. Document 4 specimens of your collection using 2 different methods that can be visualised in print format. This might be scanning, rubbing, photographing, writing, modelling, xeroxing, or other methods of recording. Test out a variety of methods and decide on the 2 best ones to capture your chosen subject. Print your images on 1-sided 8.5 × 11 inch sheets and bring to class (4 images of 1 documentation method, 4 images of another documentation method).

Part 3: Incorporating feedback from class, determine the best documentation method for your collection. Continue to add to the collection so that you have 32 examples of your subject. Document all examples using your documentation method of choice. Make sure your image files are named properly and saved in a folder on your computer, easily accessible. Another thing to pay attention to is image quality: you’ll want images in high resolution to be able to manipulate them easily later on.

Collecting-Collating

Develop a strategy to organise your full collection of images into a publication. Consider ways in which you can order and sequence the collection; by shape, size, chronological order, alphabetic order, by them, with a narrative arc, etc. Put your images into their sorting categories / sequence and print on 1-sided 11 × 17 inch sheets in black and white.

Write a short (c.150 words) text describing your chosen collection and ordering strategy. The tone of this text is up to you, it may be descriptive, didactic, poetic, playful, etc, it may focus on the act of collecting or documenting, on the way in which items have be arranged or ordered, it may expand from the objects or from their use, context, history, etc.

With your collection documentation, your selected organising strategy and your text description, design and produce a publication / booklet of the full collection. For the dimensions of the publication choose from the following: 5 × 8 inches, 6 × 9 inches, or 7 × 10 inches. The binding should be saddle-stitched (stapled), unless you have another specific binding in mind that you have discussed with the instructor. Consider the paper stock / materials you will print on, and what (or if) you will have a cover stock for the publication.