Fall 2007, Thursdays 1:30-5:30

Dan Michaelson

http://art.yale.edu/Art752a

Prerequisite: Networks & Transactions 1 (742b) or equivalent experience. The class is intended

for second-year graduate design students who are working toward their thesis. If space permits,

first-years who took 742b last year as prelims, are also welcome.

For me, some of the most exciting possibilities in design, arise when design’s job is to connect

multiple networks of information and of people, all of which are in motion. You will do two

assignments in this class, the larger of which is to create a system for communication.

We will also discuss how to site, show, or publish work that is inherently transient, in ways that

are appropriate to each student’s thesis.

Assignment 1: Junction

Identify two flows in the city of New Haven (or any other ecosystem that you frequent). For

example, cups of coffee sold at Dunkin Donuts, live music listings, bus schedules, historical

change in areas of the city, parking and unparking, classroom occupation, construction and

destruction, the movement of garbage or runoff, fashion memes, population flux, sunlight,

weather patterns, or the circulation of people within and between neighborhoods.

Expose or enable an intersection between these two flows. (Maybe or maybe not in an

advantageous way, or in an antagonistic, meaningful, or absurd way.) For example, could a

display in a bodega tell customers about lectures at Yale. In that case how would its design

engage both the bodega and the university?

Consider carefully what is your own scope or domain as the graphic designer of a junction, and

what is not. What is an appropriate and beautiful typography and movement for the junction

you’re creating?

No technology is necessary for this assignment and you must be able to finish completely in

four weeks, while working simultaneously on Assignment 2. (Therefore you are discouraged

from pursuing a technological solution for Assignment 1.) Your final deliverable can be a

scenario, a prototype or demonstration, or a temporary or permanent insertion into the

environment.

Final requirement: This project must contribute to your thesis book (as well as to your thesis).

Consider now how the visual work products of this assignment can help illustrate your thesis,

and can be adapted to fit into a book. In the past, students have sometimes elected to

collaborate on this assignment; I neither encourage nor discourage this, but have added this

requirement instead.

Assignment 2: Telegraph

“Last week, 745 human lives were saved from perishing by the wireless. But for the almost

magic use of the air the Titanic tragedy would have been shrouded in the secrecy that not so

long ago was the power of the sea … Few New Yorkers realize that all through the roar of the

big city there are constantly speeding messages between people separated by vast distances,

and that over housetops and even through the walls of buildings and in the very air one

breathes are words written by electricity.” – New York Times (Apr 21, 1912)

“Just a moment- just a moment-” – HAL 9000

Design a system for two-way communication between people. The system should enable

continuous back-and-forth conversation to take place. The system can use the computer screen

and the internet, but it doesn’t have to. It may instead use an intranet, hand delivery, the post,

telephone, semaphores, etc. It can connect two users at a time, or more. Your solution need not

be technological in any way. But you must show how it works as a two-way communication

system by implementing it.

As with the junction project, remember that your domain is graphic design. The goals and focus

of your solution should lie within that domain: a typographic and movement form, a system for

the structuring of language. What interface will you create for sending and receiving messages;

and what are the possible typographies for these messages? How do these two aspects

influence one another? Graphic design is always about technology and technique (technics); in

your project, how do modes of transmission, processing, and typographic display affect

language and communication?

Remember that your solution should be essentially adverbial or qualitative: what is

communicating like in your universe of messaging. The questions of what communication takes

place or why it does, are important to think about as you try to understand your users; but to try

to influence answers to these questions may not be productive.

I will provide sample code in Flash for an instant messenger. However, this is only one option

for you to use.

Due next week:

- Visual research and initial sketch(es) of junction project.

- Visual research toward telegraph project.