Teaching design. . .

Over the next year I will be writing and researching a great deal about design education.  My blog will serve as a place to gather thoughts and share information. Currently I am a FT instructor at a community college. I have taught for seven years, both at a one year career school and at community college. At this juncture I am also responsible for the graphic design department which is a new experience on which my explorations will be built as I make my way through my...

Information Graphic

  For Design Methodologies course – goal to create an info graphic that speaks to a cause. Research, typography, layout and illustration techniques with care to evaluate and incorporate critical...

This is the end… | wk8-2

Every term my mind is more open to the possibilities. While all this preliminary work is at times time consuming – it serves as a good exercise.  As able I try to introduce the students to the concept of preliminary work and record keeping. They live computer and so it can be a stretch. There is no formal organization when they do preliminary work, my own is getting better yet my physical methods need improvement.  I may have a methodology now it needs refinement.  This term also expanded the writing methodology which will be most helpful when it comes time to do a thesis project.’ Thankful … for a second chance when most needed, a Professor who doesn’t let us off the hook (no matter how painful) developing skill set and expanded thinking. Goals for the week – get it done!                      Get one night of 7 plus hours of sleep.                                                  Learn and implement into new more...

Process Books | wk8_1

This week reviewing the three process binders included in the unit readings, I am struck with how different everyone’s binders can be.  Jane Dorns was the most inspiring in that it was casual yet tight, it was also not elaborately designed and relied on the process to work out the details. It looked like a sketch book and not a project.  In the PDF version half the spread was computer generated the other the sketch book page. An idea from Dorn’s Process is the yellow highlighting of usable or best ideas. This is very clever simple device used to jog her own memory and process as well as guide the reader through. April’s as well is very clean, white paper, small type and lines used to direct the flow. Again the same half page digital information and the other the sketch book. Turpin’s book is more “designed” yet her illustrations are wonderful.  They are well done and rich with detail for thumb-nailing. *********** Ironic that this is the course content for the week because it has come to me that I need to sketch on half sheets of tracing paper so that I can scan them easier.  I have tried to make my process binders simple and clean and have not succeeded at this.  In past courses we were shown examples that look like we designed thought out final projects which in reality were process binders. What I take from this is  permission to keep it clean(er) and spend more time on the ideation and less on the compilation. I do like to sketch on tracing paper because of the smooth surface and the way the markers leave...