Graphic Design Art 468, Advanced Graphic Design: Ad Hoc Series and Systems

Much of the field of design concerns itself with devising systems in an attempt to create aesthetic coherence and reduce creative uncertainties, seeking efficiencies with respect to time, production and materials. However this strategy always comes up against each individual set of circumstances; the materials and content at hand, a particular cast of collaborators, a given timeframe. There is an element of the ad hoc in every piece of design; a need to improvise, interpret, adapt, make exceptions. A second thematic concern of this class is the exploration of medium-specificity and medium-porosity as they relate to such systems. The course is comprised of a series of interconnected prompts across distinct formats in print, motion, and interactive, at a wide variety of scales. A third and final thread is the cultivation of greater awareness of the evolving social and aesthetic functions of design processes, artifacts, and channels of engagement and distribution, within increasingly complex cultural contexts.