The current understanding of what constitutes design is straining at the margins of convention. The reach of design has moved beyond the materiality of objects, to biotechnological matter of chemicals and encoded genetic information, from physical space to code and data. Human beings now live lives that are immersed in design. The designer and their subject share a dialectical relationship, constantly shaping and reshaping each other. The role of the designer, thriving in the world of post-industrial and digital technologies, is thus broader today than ever before-from designing brands and creating personalities, to contriving and manipulating living organisms. Post-postmodernism, pseudo-modernism, supermodernism, digimodernism, are only a few of the many terms trying to describe our current state. Today, we occupy the digital domain as thoroughly as we do physical space. Codes and algorithms have also become signifiers of a new biotechnological paradigm shift, marking the passage into a posthuman epoch by launching us into a virtual space composed of a bright galaxy of screens and digital worlds, creating a symbiotic relationship between our technology and biological selves. As designers, we shape, clash, align, and distort this new space, elaborating a stage for the New Man and the New Woman, and perhaps even the Nonhuman. In this class, we will explore our contemporary condition through visual-research based projects around self-design, speculative design and design fiction. We will use graphic design as a medium to ask questions about ethical concerns emerging from advancements in science and technology. We will develop a new design vernacular incorporating ideas from revolutionary recent developments in genetics, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. We will employ machine vision: microscopy, neuroimaging and NASA archives to create new fictional worlds in concert with the life forms around and inside us. This engagement with the sciences will allow us as graphic designers to acquire some fundamental tools that probe fundamental human nature, and help us navigate the posthuman epoch that lies ahead.

Elective

Typography III is the culmination of RISD's typography sequence, with an emphasis on typography and contemporary display platforms. Advances in software and hardware have created new opportunities for how language is written, sequenced and accessed. Projects in this semester depend on altered states, where the content, composition, and context all are potentially at play. Students will continue to develop proficiency in designing for static compositions while extending the meaning and voice of that work across multiple platforms. Students will have ample opportunity to further shape their perspective and individual voice in relation to contemporary typography. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class, often on a computer. There is an expectation that students work both individually and in groups and be prepared to speak about their own work and the work of their peers in supportive and respectful ways. A laptop and relevant software are required.

Please contact the department for permission to register. 

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design

Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design

Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design

The second semester continues the development of typographic practice by exploring the conditions in which type operates: the systems needed to work with varying scales and narrative structures. Students will design large-scale and small-scale work simultaneously; understanding the trade-offs of various formats and contexts. The course also extends basic typesetting into more extended reading experiences. Students will learn to set the conditions for readability by creating order, expressing emotion and making meaning. Students will design and bind a book while understanding how the traditions of the codex relate to onscreen reading. Within the durable form of the book, lies centuries of conventions like indexical systems, footnotes, page matter and more. Students also will become better readers, by engaging with contemporary issues in the field of typography and type design. This is a studio course, so some class time will be used for discussions, most of the time we will be working in class, often on a computer. There is an expectation that students work both individually and in groups and be prepared to speak about their own work and the work of their peers in supportive and respectful ways. A laptop and relevant software are required.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design