Objectives

This course is an introduction to the breadth of historic and contemporary information design principles and practices with a focus on visual thinking and collaborative invention. With in-class exercises and demonstrations, you will evaluate your own learning and thinking habits while clarifying individual and collaborative connections between content, meaning, and representation.

We will develop personal and group brainstorming skills, learn to integrate imaginative play with planning and creation, and explore the process of bringing larger-scale design projects from concept to final prototype.

We will explore the notion that the design of information is meant to educate, interest, and edify, simply. In the duration of the course we will complete four small individual and three small group projects during the first seven to eight weeks of the course. We will then move to one large term project that will take the remainder of the course to complete.

The course will end with final presentations and project evaluations.

Projects 1 to 5 will focus on:

1. research and survey skills
2. content development
3. collaboration,
4. visual thinking and human perception, and
5. the human(e) interface.

Projects 6-9 will focus on:

6. iconography, symbol, and sign
7 a brief introduction to data collection, development and analysis
8. tutorial: Adobe Illustrator and Microsoft Excel
9. graphs, diagrams, maps, and spatial models.

The term project is a group project in which you will work collaboratively to plan, conceptualize, build, and critique static, progressive, or spatial information designs of your choice. We will hold weekly 15-minute presentation/critique sessions at each assigned step of your project development.

The final two weeks will be spent in the presentation and peer evaluation of these projects.