week 7B

THEME DEVELOPMENT
in class

• review conference themes as a group. read statements (or a synopsis) aloud and consider the following questions:
  -- as a designer, would you pay money to attend this conference? why or why not? 
  -- does the theme invite multiple interpretations and an interesting range of possible talks, workshops, etc? 
  -- is the theme suitable for contemporary and forward-looking design practice?
  -- what could improve the theme? 
• review timelines as time allows, in pairs or in small groups.

homework
read “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible” by Beatrice Warde (1900 - 1969)
brainstorm a list of theme names and decide on a few favorites to share with the class on monday. if your name is esoteric in some way, consider a descriptive tagline that aids understanding.
write a concise and clear paragraph describing what your theme encompasses -- about three or four sentences. this will appear on major conference materials and should be written in a way that generates excitement about the event. be creative, energetic, smart, and sophisticated. consider your audience.
refine your designer and bio from a few weeks ago. this person(s) will serve as your keynote speaker(s) for the conference. you can use the bio as content for your conference materials.

week 7A

TIMELINE+CONCEPT MAP+THEME
in class:
- review tiled out concept maps as a group. post a screenshot of your concept map to your blog for documentation purposes.
- review timelines as a group, looking on everyone’s blogs. make sure you have a good quality image (fairly large) of your timeline posted to your blog.
- discuss “experience” reading.
- concept map lecture. 

homework:
- continue to refine both the timeline and concept map, adding and reorganizing as needed.
- final concept map is due friday march 26, as a carefully tiled color printout, roughly 34" by 22".
- determine a conference theme based on your type experiments. the theme must be flexible enough to generate a decent amount of interest and attendance, so carefully consider the interest level of your previous research topic and how it might be expanded or contracted slightly. you want to attract more than ten people, but you also want something to focus the dialogue. a good theme can be interpreted and expressed in many ways, and opens up dialogue on the topic. here are some examples:

bad: type made of cubes; good: dimensional typography
bad: typographic optical illusions; good: type and visual perception
bad: handwriting fonts; good: type and the hand

the theme needn’t have a snappy title yet. we’ll worry about that later. just have the subject matter figured out at this point.

a written paragraph about your conference theme is due next class period. define/describe the depth and breadth of your typographic focus as well as its importance to the field. 

group work: you are encouraged to work with other students who have similar themes if you want to make this into a group project. you have three options for group work:
one: co-development of theme only, based on the similarity of your experiments.
two: shared theme + shared visual identity, but divide up artifacts you want to make.
three: you could work together on everything, including co-creating artifacts.
however, once you make a commitment to a group project, you are stuck with it. no quitters.

grading criteria for concept map and timeline
due friday march 26 as tiled color prints -- 90% size is fine
- clarity and logic of spatial organization
- typographic craft
- breadth and depth of insights
- craft of presentation