Virginia Commonwealth University
Department of Graphic Design
Spring 2012

GDES 491 903
TR 4:30 to 6:50
Anne Jordan, Instructor
Pollak 311

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Most design work today starts and ends on the computer. Our hands are rarely used to operate tools that are not attached to a USB cord. Digital tools are firmly embedded in the contemporary design process—but are not the only (or the best) tools at our disposal. The synthesis of old and new, analog and digital, and hand- and computer-based methods provides designers with an opportunity to work beyond of the container of the computer.

In this course, students will use processes that involve their hands to create graphic design, relying on the computer as a supplementary tool. Students will be encouraged to switch back and forth from analog to digital, aiming to fuse the two together into new hybrid forms. This course will be a laboratory to explore how processes and materials can both form and inform design.

Lectures and demonstrations will cover a wide range of inventive and unique processes used by artists and designers around the world. Assignments and critiques will encourage alternative methods of working, the use of unconventional materials, and conceptual and formal experimentation. Over the course of the semester students will complete multiple projects, each investigating a different approach to synthesizing analog and digital techniques into graphic design artifacts.

OBJECTIVES
— To creatively synthesize analog and digital processes in order to generate new ways of making design
— To use tools and materials as a way to discover new processes and visual languages
— To remix materials, design elements, and forms in order to create innovative works of graphic design
— To take materials outside of their normal utilitarian functions and into the realm of the poetic
— To explore the equilibrium and inherent properties of materials, and how these properties can be manipulated to communicate a specific message
— To treat both the design process and the resulting visual form as a manifestation of concept
— To recognize graphic design as a physical, material process of construction
— To explore how materials and form can affect and alter communication and perception
— To explore how what you make and how you make it can integrate to create new and possibly unexpected meaning

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Anne Jordan is a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Design/Visual Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a Principal of Hypothesis, an interdisciplinary visual design studio based in Richmond, Virginia. She earned her BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

For more information contact anne@hypothesisltd.com