Tasks Due Today from Week 13
- Complete your Research Project Presentation and come prepared to present!
- Completed the Art of Noticing task
Check-in (5 min)
Only one class left!
Let’s all try to attend the last class, please. 🙂
THINGS TO KNOW
- All coursework (see Assignments list), including your Writing Portfolio, comments on your classmates’ presentations, Reading Responses, Discussion comments, Designer’s Cookbook posts, and any additional work you’d like to submit or revise, should be posted by Wednesday May 22nd.
- Any work you’d like feedback on from me should be submitted by Week 15. Please notify me if you’d like feedback.
- Your Grade Survey is due in class Week 15. Your learning reflection and the grade you believe you have earned for this course will be factored into your final grade.
- Last day to Withdraw with a grade of (W) is Wednesday, May 15th. Please contact me first to see if we can work something out.
- If you want to schedule any last-minute meetings about your final grade or anything else, contact me to set up a meeting or with any questions or concerns.
- This year’s Rarebit Animation Festival, open to all CUNY students, is now open for submissions! Use this form to submit any kind of animation work.
- Please submit your Stereotype essay for consideration in Many Voices.
Not sure if you missing assignments or discussion posts? Take a look all of the coursework for this semester on the Schedule page and the Assignments list.
Freewrite – The Art of Noticing (15 min)
Prompt: In your language of choice, write continuously in your notebook for 10 minutes about what you noticed this week when completing the task. Don’t edit, or correct, don’t stop, just write. Feel free to share or not.
This week’s task brought to you by Dorian:
Compare Memories
Think about a trip you took, ideally with someone else. Spend an hour trying to remember everything about it that you can. Do not consult photographs or diary entries: just remember. Try to remember the odd, small moments. Concentrate on what lingers in your memory, however inconsequential. Write down everything that you recall. Discuss your findings with your traveling partner.; compare notes. What lines up and what doesn’t.
ART OF NOTICING
Next Week’s Prompt by Jenna:
Practice Digital Silence
Consider observing a set period of time each day of digital silence. Start with 5 minutes and work you way up to entire day. Let your people know you’re signing off for X amount of time, and fully silence your devices – put them in the fridge if you must. Go for a walk, read a book, write a story, make a drawing, have a conversation with your grandma, but do it without checking, watching or engaging with your devices. What do you notice?
ART OF NOTICING
Activities
Below, find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
1. Research Project Presentations!
Those who signed up last week will be presenting your Research Projects. Remember, this is a friendly review. The goal is to get feedback from your peers and improve your work.
As your classmates share their presentations, write down some comments and then add them to your classmates’ posts before the end of class – if possible.
View all the Presentation posts by navigating to Student Posts > Research Project.
Give at least 1 comment per presentation. Your comment should be supportive AND helpful!
This is NOT a helpful comment:
“Great presentation, I like it”
A helpful comment offers support, a critique of the content and delivery of the research material, as well as suggestions for improvement:
“Great presentation, NAME. I enjoyed your exploration of XXXX and XXXX. I was especially excited to learn about XXXX and XXXX. I was intrigued by your discussion of XXXX because you presented it by exploring XXXX and contrasted it with XXXX. However, I would have liked to have learned more about XXXXX. Have you considered expanding on XXXX and XXXX? Here are some links about XXXX that I think would be helpful for your future research.”
If we have extra time… Or if you want to learn more!
2. The Digital Revolution
The late 90s to early 2000s marked the transition from hand-crafted graphic design to digital design. The Internet boom at the dawn of the millennium welcomed millions of online users. Computer-aided design was no longer just an option; it became a necessity. The 2000s were a decade of great political and social change. Designers were called to respond to the excesses of capitalism and consumerism in design and focus on ‘pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills.’
Below, review the videos and text to explore the digital revolution, the impacts of technology, and the push for social responsibility in the field of design.
As one millennium ended and another began, digital technology fundamentally transformed graphic design. Old avant-garde issues of authorship, universality, and social responsibility were reborn within society’s newly decentralized networked structure.
Helen Armstrong
Tech Tranformation – 1990’s
In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh computer. It would revolutionize the entire design industry, but it took a while for the industry to change. I was in art school in the early 1990s, and we used the first release of Photoshop 1.0. It was slow, clunky, and honestly painful to use (we would run a filter and go out for coffee!), but the results were nothing like we had ever seen before. What kind of revolutionary tech have you experienced recently?
Let’s watch The Digital Revolution from Graphic Design History on LinkedIn Learning to gain an overview of the time period, the advent of the personal computer, and its effects on the design industry. Watch from 1:57:58 – 2:01:49 on LinkedIn Learning via your Library Card.
Activity: As you watch, take note of the dates and designers who experimented with these new tools. Also, note how once again changes in technology radically altered the field of design and the role of a designer.
The Internet – 2000’s
At the turn of the 20th Century, photography and printing revolutionalized communications. At the turn of the 21st Century, the new digital technologies of the computer and the internet change the field of communication design again.
In the early years of the internet, graphics were limited and the design standards that we know and use today were often ignored. It was the wild west. After many years, designers began to see the importance of user experience. A focus on universality, the grid, visual/information hierarchy, and minimalism drove much of the design aesthetic in web design because it allowed designers to put content and the user experience first. Today anyone anywhere can author a website and this has changed the role of the designer once again.
Activity: As you watch this video, note that it’s from 2012. What has happened to mobile/app development in the last ten years since this video was produced? And looking back at our exploration of the effects of social media on society, how has the optimistic utopian vision of the internet changed?
Consider your own experience as a consumer and a creator. Most of you grew up with the internet. How has your use of the computer and the web changed in your lifetime? Do you have nostalgia for the “old days”?
3. New Paradigms
Let’s look at a few different technologies and trends that have surfaced in recent years. Some are positioned to alter the future of design. What design trends have you noticed?
AI Designed Products
The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning is being felt in all areas of the creative industry. We have robots reporting the news, computers generating songs, and paintings by AI platforms. Our creative roles are changing once again due to new technologies.
If you haven’t started learning how AI can work for you. Check out the courses for Artificial Intelligence for Design. Or explore how some programs that utilize AI could be useful to your design process:
- Adobe Sensei is a machine learning and AI-powered platform that is built into Adobe Creative Cloud products.
- Google Deep Dream is an AI-powered tool that uses deep learning algorithms to generate psychedelic and surreal images from existing photos.
- Figma is a cloud-based design tool that uses AI to help designers collaborate and create designs more efficiently.
- Conceptboard and Miro are two collaboration tools that use AI to streamline the design process.
- Notion is an all-in-one workspace tool that uses AI to assist designers in tracking their progress, assigning tasks, and collaborating with team members.
And below, this designer discusses the potential implications of AI in our design processes and provides an example of a shoe designed with AI tools.
VR and AR
VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) are working their way into various disciplines, but these are still emerging technologies. Many people predict that these technologies will cause a more significant change in society than the internet. Others think they will fizzle out. We have seen how technology can be a driving force in the changes in society and in the field of design, but it may take time for real adoption to occur. What do you think?
In 2022 Facebook announced it would be evolving into Meta: “3D spaces in the metaverse will let you socialize, learn, collaborate and play in ways that go beyond what we can imagine.”
Augmented Reality Trends in Communication Design (2024)
Not that different from “Augmented Reality Trends to Keep an Eye on for 2023” but with the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro in February we are inching closer to integrated AR.
Check out some expected 2024 trends below and imagine what AR will look like in five to ten years: AR-based Gaming, Mobile AR Tools, Wearables, 3D Design & Prototyping, Immersive Navigation, Computer Vision, 5G Connectivity, Virtual Try-On, Spatial Audio, Depth Sensing & LiDAR
Let’s try out just a couple of the product apps that have been using AR technology for years:
- Maybelline’s virtual try-on tool
- Warby Parker’s Glasses try-on app
- The IKEA app was one of the firsts. Place products in your space before you buy.
- Sky Guide uses AR for star gazing.
- With Giphyworld you can place stickers and effects all over your apartment.
- Shapr3D uses LiDAR to quickly create floorplans.
- Snapchat, of course, uses Snap AR to create AR effects.
- You may have heard about the COMD Eggventure, a COMD Futures collaboration with Membit.co last year. Follow this guide, download the app, and explore the COMD hallway to collect the eggs!
Here is one designer’s dystopian imagining of an Augmented Reality future. Could this be the Future?
Want to learn more?
Here’s a designer discussing his journey and career in 3D and AR.
Here’s an example of the use of VR to share the experience of racism:
4. Designer’s Cookbook
Don’t forget to check out your colleagues’ Designer’s Cookbook posts! Some really great work here. Thanks to all who contributed!
Week 14 Agenda Checklist
Below are all of the tasks, big and small, for this week. The due date is Wednesday, 11:59 pm before our next Thursday class. Timely completion of these tasks will contribute to your success in this course.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
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