Typesetting—the arrangement of letters into words, words into lines of text, and lines of text into paragraphs—is a fundamental practice in typography. This research studio will explore interventions in the technology of typesetting with the goal of creating new visual forms or ways of working. The course is organized around three areas of inquiry: How does programming enable new ways of approaching con- ventional typesetting? How can alternative interfaces suggest new conceptual models for thinking about the arrangement of language? How does the malleability of text on screens allow for more interactive or dynamic type compo- sitions? The course will combine collective research into historical and contemporary precedents and self-initiated projects exploring new ideas and techniques.

“Cut” – a part or quantity of text deleted or omitted. “Copy” – an imitation, reproduction, or transcript of an original text. “Paste” – to insert copied text or images to a surface. In this course, students will draw inspiration from late 19th through early 20th century American print media, by cutting, copying and pasting from historical references. The course will provide an overview of select design works spanning from 1865–1965, to showcase the evolution of typography in the public sphere during this 100 year period. A critical focus of the class is centered on the evolution of typographic form, as it was adapted for a variety of social and political contexts. Students will have an opportunity to explore multiple strategies for design construction, that encompass appropriation, photocopying, scanning, pattern-making, collage and détournement. Through this engagement, students will be asked to think conceptually about historical typographic material in the making of new experimental posters (broadsides), handbills (flyers), rudimentary motion graphics and interactive websites. Students will be encouraged to work across print and digital modalities to produce unconventional design forms.

Process + Creation explores the structure and logic within undefined or chaotic spaces. By organizing information into manageable, usable forms, we enhance both understanding and accessibility. Through the lens of both artistic and commercial contexts, students will analyze the work of 20th- and 21st-century artists, designers, and composers, investigating how they use structure to guide or disrupt our perception of form. Drawing inspiration from across various disciplines—visual arts, design, music, performance, and more—students will learn how foundational elements like grids, abstract notation, sound, and spatial mapping become tools of organization and meaning-making. Artists and practitioners studied include: Mona Chalabi, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, John Cage, Tauba Auerbach, Frank Ocean, Holly Herndon, Legacy Russell, Kija Lucas, Vera Molnár, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and more. The course is an exploration of creativity and systems thinking, with an interdisciplinary and inclusive approach. In the final project, students are encouraged to think about using hybrid media, digital tools and emerging technologies to query and create, whether within a predefined structure or outside of it.

At a time ruled by misinformation and disinformation, many of us turn to Wikipedia as a reliable source for consensus on both history and the present moment. At the same time, Wikipedia has been either fully or partially censored by governments around the world, and people wage smaller wars on contentious pages. More recently, it has come under attack from the right in the United States, both for its editorial policies and its content. This class will serve as a studio to create a 2026 time capsule in the form of a set of conceptual and experimental physical books. For content, we will be using information and meta-information gathered from Wikipedia at the present moment, thinking about how changes, lists, new articles, and contentious articles tell a story about each year, and what it means to frame and preserve that information. The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the non-profit that funds Wikipedia, is to “support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world.” We will have conversations with them and with each other about the history and theory of this idea – the sharing of reliable information and the role of design – while making beautiful, detailed books.

Contemporary design relies on a range of software platforms (think Photoshop or Figma) that are seen as necessary tools for professional creative output. At the same time, since the desktop publishing revolution of the nineties, design tools for the general public have increasingly gained in sophistication. In both streams of creative production, ideas of default settings and standardized templates have been present-- and have always been present in the history of graphic design-- but are now turbocharged by generative AI. Through a combination of visual research and making, this studio course explores how we might individually come to terms with these defaults. What possibilities are there for harnessing and redirecting the possibilities they suggest? How do we locate our own creative agency and our future in this way of making?

Artists have long ago used the practice of chance to generate work that is less reliant on control. However, chance is not necessarily used in design practice because the key goal is to produce solutions posed by a problem in efficient ways. In this class, students will explore strategies to expand their thinking in unpredictable ways by engaging in chance operations to generate ideas. The quality that makes design work stand out is its provocative point of view that elicits a positive response from others, including the client. This Currents class aims to develop the designer’s subjective voice in order to lend their work distinction. Design that suppresses that voice becomes merely a dry exercise in problem-solving. Projects include The Designer As A Cultural Nomad—a process of looking critically at a familiar yet often unfamiliar environment, eventually developing a relationship and understanding of what was initially foreign territory. As we evolve, we continually assess our role and place in the world. With this process, the students are given an alternative perspective on the role of design... that it is not merely a way to sell a product, but an opportunity to enlighten, pose questions and interact with, and understand the world. This course is taught by Lucille Tenazas, Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design. Her work is at the intersection of typography and linguistics, with design that reflects complex and poetic means of visual expression. A cultural nomad herself, she is originally from the Philippines, having practiced in the United States for close to 40 years, a trajectory that included living in San Francisco, Rome, Italy and New York. Lucille is an authority in the evolving state of design education and has conducted workshops throughout the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

As designers, the tools we use shape the work we produce. Our ever-growing library of digital technologies saves us time and energy, but these tools also constrain us in ways we might not fully realize. In this course, we will explore a world outside of and adjacent to our computers. Making physically, we will discover new visual effects and find intentionality in decisions that would otherwise be automated away. Through a series of quick exercises and larger projects, we will investigate typography and lettering, experiment with scale and perspective, and find ways to bring the dimensional world around us and into the flat world of the printed page and the screen. Moving from the physical to the digital and back again, we will play with how tangible craft can impact our design processes. This course will also include a workshop on documentation techniques as well as a site visit to a print production facility.

This course consists of a series of three workshops, which explore contemporary positions in Communication Design, taught by specialists / working professionals from industry. Each workshop is 5 weeks long and examines a specific topic in detail. Topics include (but are not limited to) type in space; digital typography and prototyping; and design systems. Further details of the individual workshops will be posted soon. Students are expected to engage in all three workshops and must be present for the duration of the semester.

This course consists of a series of three workshops, which explore contemporary positions in Communication Design, taught by specialists / working professionals from industry. Each workshop is 5 weeks long and examines a specific topic in detail. Topics include (but are not limited to) type in space; digital typography and prototyping; and design systems. Further details of the individual workshops will be posted soon. Students are expected to engage in all three workshops and must be present for the duration of the semester.

This course consists of a series of three workshops, each explore contemporary positions in Communication Design, taught by specialists and working professionals from industry. Each workshop is 5 weeks long and examines a specific topic in detail. Topics of the individual workshops will be posted as they become available. Past workshop topics include a survey of visual culture of 2010s, voice commands and interfaces, generative identity systems, speculative platforms, typography in and out of buildings, and what makes a bad design. Students are expected to engage in all three workshops and must be present for the duration of the semester.