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.

This course will introduce you to the basic concepts of Experiential Graphic Design, working at the intersection of environmental and participatory design. By considering physical interaction as a core element of the design process, you will learn to craft spatially located interactions which orient, inform, educate, or delight an audience. Projects will invite you to think about design as an embodied experience, starting from the scale of a hand-held device and expanding to that of an inhabitable structure. Prompts will be provided that allow you to generate your own subject matter, while solving for specific desired outcomes. The final form of projects will range from physical prototypes to detailed speculative proposals, always with a focus on creating spatially located interventions.

From zipping a file for ease of emailing to reducing the size of a pdf to fit an application portal’s size limit, designers are no strangers to the technique of compression. However, this act is typically only considered as an afterthought to the design process, and a mere technical one at that. In this course, on the contrary, we will explore the significant role compression plays in design by viewing it through the lenses of media studies and information theory. These disciplines foreground the infrastructures/platforms that make communication possible, be they undersea fiber optic cables, the USPS, radio waves, Adobe Creative Suite, or a book. Compression, in this perspective, is central to all design/communicative acts: we compress every time we fit a letter to an envelope or deploy cartographic conventions to transform a physical space into a printable map. Over the course of the semester, we will explore different strategies of compression with a focus on their aesthetic and political implications. Through readings and a series of design exercises culminating in a self-directed project, students will learn to treat this cultural technique not as an afterthought but as a core component of their practice.

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.

What do we mean when we say something is badly designed? Is it illegible? Underdesigned? Does it draw too much attention to itself? Does it have something to do with the designer? The audience? How about good design, what does that look like? Is it clear? Simple? Just right? We often form opinions based on "industry best practices," trends, and social norms that prioritize efficiency for maximum profit generation. Bad Design is a part studio, part reading-and-conversation seminar exploring design that doesn’t conform to the standard. The course will challenge (good) design tropes by surveying the histories and systems in which graphic design exists to situate why we may deem design work "bad." We will investigate the role of locality, legibility, plurality, and lived experience in our design work, while taking the stance that design needs to be self-critical to allow for diverse ways of making.

In the current media display landscape, design must be expressed through multiple channels: print, digital formats such as websites (desktop, tablet, mobile), and native social formats (1:1, 9:16). Each medium of visual delivery must maintain its identity across platforms through carefully considered visual and typographic systems while conveying the story in a manner native to each respective medium. By applying past learning in typography and interaction, this hands-on studio course practices the principles of graphic design in relation to how the message is conveyed through different visual mediums and channels, with each medium maintaining its unique identity. Students will gain an understanding of the importance of creating a design system.

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 conventional 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 compositions? The course will combine collective research into historical and contemporary precedents and self-initiated projects exploring new ideas and techniques.

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 surveys the possibilities unlocked by generative artificial intelligence and its profound impact on redefining user interfaces across the digital landscape. Through an exploration of the paradigms and affordances made possible by contemporary AI technologies including GANs, diffusion, transformers/LLMs, etc. we will explore concepts, theories, and practical applications at the intersection of user interface design and generative AI. Using a combination of theoretical investigation and hands-on projects, students will gain a deep understanding of how AI-driven technologies are reshaping the way humans interact with machines and will have the opportunity to design new interfaces which leverage these emergent technologies.