Faculty: You can include your course schedule here with links to each agenda. Start with this template or change it. Feel free to substitute readings and media as needed. Be sure to add “Week –” links throughout the semester so students can refer to past weeks.

***The following schedule is subject to change. Refer to the Weekly Agenda posts linked here for up-to-date content.***

Week 1

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Introduction, Course Overview – Why Theory?
  • Readings / Media: Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field. Princeton Architectural Press, 2009 (excerpt)
  • Assignment: Reading Response 1, Discussion: Introductions
  • Due Dates:  

Week 2

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Laying the Groundwork for Design Theory
  • Readings / Media: Hall, Sean. This Means This, This Means That: A User’s Guide to Semiotics, Laurence King Publishing, 2012 (Chapters 1 & 2); Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (excerpt)
  • Assignment: Reading Response 2, Discussion: Revisiting the Avant-garde
  • Due Dates: 

Week 3

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Language, Linguistics, Symbols, Signs
  • Readings / Media: F.T. Marinetti, “Manifesto of Futurism”; Aleksandr Rodchenko, “Who We Are: Manifesto of the Constructivist Group”; El Lissitzky, “Our Book”
  • Assignment: Reading Response 3, Discussion: Semiotics
  • Due Dates: 

Week 4

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Manifestos, Movements and the Avant-Garde
  • Readings / Media: Walter Gropius, “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus”; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, “Typophoto”; Herbert Bayer, “On Typography”
  • Assignment: Reading Response 4, Discussion: Manifestos
  • Due Dates: 

Week 5

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Bauhaus Function and Form
  • Assignment: Research Paper 1, Discussion: Bauhaus & Universality
  • Due Dates: 

Week 6

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Choosing a Research Project Topic
  • Readings / Media: Karl Gerstner, Designing Programmes (exc.); Joseph Muller-Brockman, “Grid and Design Philosophy”; Jan Tschichold, “The Principles of the New Typography” 
  • Assignment: Reading Response 5, Discussion: Research Topic
  • Due Dates: 

Week 7

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: International Style Evolution; Research Project Proposal due Week 8
  • Readings / Media:  Celebrating the African-American Practitioners Absent From Way Too Many Classroom Lectures by Madeleine Morley; Typography as a Radical Act in an Industry Ever-dominated by White Men by Silas Munro; Design Gets More Diverse by Alice Rawsthorn
  • Assignment: Reading Response 6, Discussion: International Style; Is Helvetica Invisible?
  • Due Dates: 

Week 8

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Mainstream Modernism + American Corporate Identity; Mid-Term Assessment
  • Readings / Media: Paul Rand, Good Design is Goodwill; Steven Heller, Underground Mainstream
  • Assignment: Reading Response 7, Discussion: Branding as Belonging
  • Due Dates: 

Week 9

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Media as Message / Research Paper 2
  • Readings / Media: Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image”; Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (exc.)
  • Assignment: Reading Response 8, Discussion: The Medium is the Message; Persuasive Media
  • Due Dates: 

Week 10

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Context and Representation; Stereotype in Advertising Media; Visual Rhetoric
  • Assignment: Research Paper 2
  • Due Dates: 

Week 11

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Post-Modernism / Research Paper 2 Due
  • Readings / Media:  Katherine McCoy and David Frej “Typography as Discourse” 
  • Assignment: Reading Response 9, Discussion: What is Post Modernism?
  • Due Dates: 

Week 12

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: The Digital Revolution & Social Responsibility
  • Readings / Media: Rick Poynor “The Evolving Legacy of Ken Garland’s First Things First Manifesto“
  • Assignment: Reading Response 10 + Discussion: Graphic Authorship & Social Responsibility now and then.
  • Due Dates: 

Week 13

  • Date Posted:
  • Topic: New Paradigms / Final research Project Presentation prep
  • Assignment: Discussion: Final Project Research In Progress, Research Project due
  • Due Dates:

Week 14

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Research Project Presentations, Peer Feedback, Grade Survey
  • Assignment: Research Project Peer Feedback, Research Journal
  • Due Dates: *Final Project and all work due next class*

Week 15

  • Date Posted: 
  • Topic: Wrap up
  • Assignment: Grade Survey, Course Evaluations
  • Due Dates: All work due
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