ADVANCED VISUAL DESIGN STUDIO [04/05]

TUE+THUR 8:00am-10:50am MILLRACE ONE rm114 / Professor YING TAN / office hours TUE 11am-1pm MILLRACE ONE rm102

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"To engage design as a critical stance, the need exists for a new model. Design must distance itself from narrow specialization as imposed by the 20th century Fordist model of production. The new paradigm abandons expertise in the division of labour, and promises to end boundaries, borders, and artificial limits." -Bruce Mau, 2002

 

Advanced Visual Design (AVD) is a project based three-term studio that considers all options in communication design. It provides the pre-professional student an opportunity for immersion in conceptual invention and problem solving in an environment based on design practice and research. Studio efforts will encompass a wide range of design experiences from which to build personal methods, insights and portfolios. Both graduate and undergraduate students will find opportunities for growth.

 

The issues around which we will develop inquiry and create design artifacts are as follows:

 

1.     Language, meaning and ideas...communication theory and signification, conceptual invention  

      and creativity, visual language and rhetoric, representation, evidence, and truth.

2.     Critical analysis and problem-solving...function, performance, research, testing.

3.     Culture and context... vernacular communications, identity and style, community and  

            public/private.

4.    New media...theory and practice, interactive, experiential, immaterial, immersive, technology

      history and theory, information environments.

5.     Design aesthetics... formal, functional and technical integration, the ambiguous and poetic vs.   

      clarity and logic, structure, organization and control.

6.     Design practice...ethics, materialism, environment, applied intuition, teams, clients, project

      development and management, time and money, jobs, interviews, presentation, portfolio.

 

Fall 2004 Advanced Design Studio I will focus on the power of design in the social and political context; Winter 2005 Advanced Design II will explore design solutions for culture/knowledge dissemination; Spring 2005 Advanced Design III will focus on personal portfolio development and professional review.