2.28.2010

week 6

CRIT MAP

here is a map showing suggested spaces for everyone on monday and friday. the room and all work will be ready to present at 8:00 am or it will receive a zero. no joke.

week 6

GRADING CRITERIA -- EXPERIMENTATION PROJECT

project objectives
- raise interesting and sustainable questions about the fundamental aspects of typographic form. how well did you do this? what is the quality and potential of the questions you asked? were the results interesting? was the pursuit passionate? what was learned?
- apply individual visual / verbal perspectives to projects through writing, research, and content development at a basic level. how much of your perspective is evident in this work? how much does your blog writing reflect opinions you are forming about your work?
- integrate accumulated typographic knowledge with form, image, sequence and narrative. how well have you built upon what you already know about form-making, type & image, storytelling, etc. in this work? does this look like type IV-level work?

presentation/craft
- arrangement of crit space
- clear and understandable presentation of your experiments and results
- overall craft and attention to detail in individual studies

participation (clarity of description, thoughtfulness, quality of insights)
- during final crit
- process writing on your blog

process
- how well you were prepared for desk crits in class
- thoroughness of process documented on your blogs

2.26.2010

week 5B

TYPE EXPERIMENTATION CRITIQUE
monday march1 and friday march 5
8:00 to 10:00 each day

format (same thing on both days)
100 minutes total
30 minutes open discussion
30 minutes brief presentations 9 students (graded) = 3 min max, each
40 minutes paper crit 9 students (graded) = 4 min each

wall and table spaces have been assigned based on your requests. sunday night at 9:00 i will post the classroom layout and you will know who we are critting monday vs friday. everyone should be ready to roll monday regardless of when you go, because we will get the new project monday and there won't be time to noodle around with more stuff before friday's crit. 

your presentation
state briefly what questions you were asking; ideas, methods and processes used to pursue those questions; and what you learned about type through this process. three minutes max.

written crits
i will have written forms for everyone to fill out for all of your classmates. you will have about 4 minutes at each person's space to look at work and make constructive critical comments.

2.22.2010

week 5A

READING RESPONSES

regarding the "type image message" reading:

which of these composition strategies have you used the most in the past?

how do you see these strategies applying to your current type work at kcai (are you already using them in some way), or how might you re-imagine your current experiments to try these out?

2.19.2010

week 4B

READING

for monday, read "type image message" by skolos and wedell (on my reserve shelf in the library) pp 9-17, 64-65, 108-109, 154-55, about the various ways type and image may be combined.

also post to your blogs your most recent process work and what you've been learning. both aspects are important here -- not just images, but what you're getting out of this process. that's not just for my sake, but more for your own growth and reflection.

keep in mind that crit is coming up and you need to have your work packaged up in a presentable form. you can do test applications if that would help showcase your work better, but it's not required. you need to be able to show clear evidence of your explorations and talk about the ideas behind it in a compelling way. we'll discuss this more later on.

2.15.2010

week 4A

EXTRA CREDIT!

20 points to anyone who makes a designalogue banner using their experimental processes. do it! it will be very cool. for those of you who would benefit from having a practical application for your experiment, this will be a nice quick little exercise.

2.08.2010

week 3

DESIGNER BIO

recall from last week’s research the key type designers, graphic designers, or non-designers engaged in your typographic area of interest. select one contemporary example you feel best represents this area and write a brief but informative bio on them. write for a graphic design audience -- give us all the usual info a fellow designer would be interested in.

read “it is beautiful...then gone”, by martin venezky, pp 60-67, 80-91, about martin’s reebok and sundance processes. the book is on on library reserve.

post to your blog some of the things you’ve been making and what you’ve learned about typography through your making.

for monday (in one week), bring everything you've made for a massive show and tell. we will browse the work as a group and talk about what we're learning, difficulties we've had, and where to go from here.

2.04.2010

week 2 B

MAKING / ASKING

in class: share summaries of what you learned through both the writing process and the visual organization of collections. make sure your collections are in a form that can be shared with the class.

we will talk as a group about what area(s) might be ripe for exploration within your interest area. it’s time to start asking questions about where this area can go. we can do this individually, in small groups, or as a class. these questions should be carefully considered and balance open-endedness and focus. do not ask yes/no questions, but “what if...” and “how” and “why” questions.

to prime the pump, here are a couple of 100 questions that brue mau asked about typefaces. they are incorrectly worded (yes/no questions), but you get the idea.

“Can we make a font that has memory?”
“Could you imagine a font that has a limited lifespan?”

try to have a good list of questions -- maybe at least ten -- by the end of class.

homework: select a question that has some interesting potential; that could lead into unusual territory. start making stuff that explores that question. this is not about finding one solution and declaring the question answered, but about exploration, play, and discovering the implications of that question. it’s a process of discovery.

keep working on locating significant people engaged in your area of interest. ideally they are making multiple projects dealing with your issue, or closely related to your issue.

read:
triggs chapter openers, pp 108-113, 144-149, 180-185 -- no need to write a response on this. make sure you’re flipping through this book to find designers working in areas similar to your own interests.

2.01.2010

week 2 :: reading

TRIGGS RESPONSES PP 12-17

what do you think about technology's role in enabling typographic experimentation? what technology is the present-day equivalent to the desktop computer, and how might that be utilized in type design or typography?

what potential exists for continuing to explore the "second order of denotation" as mentioned in the cranbrook/mccoy sections?

further, what potential might your area of interest have to "promote multiple rather than fixed meanings" as jeffery keedy mentions? and what role might the reader play in the construction of your typographic messages?

thoughts? does this spur any ideas for your own work? respond in the comments here.

week 2 A

RESEARCH TRENDS PART DEUX
in class: in a quick session of one hour or less, we will review everyone’s area(s) of interest as a group.

narrow things down to one large interest area, “architectural typography” or “sign painting” or “utilitiarian type” for example. spend time organizing your collection of stuff into appropriate categories. if you can give it a loose descriptive title like above, it’s probably an appropriately sized chunk of the type world. before the end of class, make something visual that represents your collection/interest area. it can take any form and include all of your (2nd) collection, just a few bits, or be something entirely new. just respond visually -- no pressure. we will look at everyone’s creations the last five minutes of class.

homework:
outside of class, meet up with other classmates working on similar themes. share findings, observations, and just generally get a feel for what others are doing.

write a page
or so (not including images) about this recurring typographic tendency or larger trend you observe from your research. how would you describe it? what are its traits? where did it begin? where does it appear? who’s doing it? why is it important?

writing is another mode of expression and creation apart from visual making. it can help you think, analyze, categorize, and clarify to yourself what it is you’re working with.

make a visual organization of your 2nd collection, or some edited version of your collection. put it into some visual form according to appropriate subcategories, gradients, or other organizational strategy. we’ll look at these in the next class session.

ideally your interest area is something more lasting than the industry’s year-long obsession with a particular script typeface, but is a emerging undercurrent of typographic practice. feel free to go back and add example images after you write.

read:
triggs chapter openers, pp 20-25, 54-57