Course Aims
The aim of DSGN 100 is to enable students to articulate how the selection of specific design tools and production processes affect the final ‘look and feel’ of a design artifact. Students will be encouraged to explore workflows leading to alternative aesthetic qualities. Through a number of short assignments students will be asked to create and execute a design solution applied to a specific design brief. Each one of these assignments focuses on a particular process, tool or technique, and will be supported with presentations and in-class exercises. In addition to professional standards in publication software focus will be on demonstrating the potential of a variety of tools and workflows integrating multiple digital and analog techniques. While the focus of the course is on the application of skills and the use of the tools involved in the production of a project, students will also learn how to craft new tools, in forms such as templates and style sheets, and how to approach new software, in essence ‘learning how to learn technology.’
DSGN 100 aims to help students understand, and begin to utilize, the various technical tools that can be used to realize effective print-based and screen-based designs in their multiple forms of ideation, development, interation, and launch. Communications Designers need to understand a variety of analog and digital processes in order to produce successful media. This course helps students to explore different tools and develop the technical skills to confidently create visual imagery for multimedia delivery. Students will be introduced to photography, scanning and other technologies to create, acquire and manipulate imagery, as well as to a variety of printing processes including offset, lithography, silk-screening, digital printing and laser-cutting. Students will learn how to prepare comprehensives to produce professional design solutions, integrating multiple assets, and to consider technical aspects such as resolution, file formats, color models, support and printing materials, etc.