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4000 Level Visual Communication Course Descriptions
VISCOM 4000
Independent Projects:
Visual Communications
Undergraduate Projects gives the student the opportunity to
explore a specific problem in the student’s area of concentration,
carried out independently but with a faculty adviser. A schedule of
conferences is usually established at the beginning of the semester.
Instructor signature required for registration. Open to students at
junior level and above.
VISCOM 4001
Advanced Graphic Design
This course is an orientation toward complex communication and layered
information problems. General topics of study are proposed and students
must then develop their own area of focus. Prerequisite: VISCOM 3500.
VISCOM 4005
Design Studio
This course includes a series of visiting lecturers and designers from
the Chicago design community. The projects focus on the creative process
within design studios, from evaluating the communication needs of an
organization, to developing design solutions that fulfill those needs,
to the negotiation process between designers and clients. Students also
follow printing and production processes from beginning to end. Prerequisite:
VISCOM 3500.
VISCOM 4007
Advanced Typography: Language and Image
Extensive development of the visual impact of language. Through typography,
students communicate metaphor, humor, contradiction, and the multidimensional
aspects of language. Students explore the complex possibilities of visualizing
the verbal language. Prerequisite: VISCOM 3025.
VISCOM 4009
Advanced Digital Pre-Press Production
This course covers detailed production issues when preparing digital-based
art for printing. A wide range of information is included, such as color
calibration, film separation for both flat color and four-color process
printing, issues related to translation into reflective color, and traditional
offset printing, as well as smaller edition computer-based printing.
Prerequisite: VISCOM 2001 and VISCOM 2003.
VISCOM 4030
Packaging: Stimulus and Response
“Packaged” consumer products and environment will be analyzed
for their ability to attract and motivate audience involvement. Controlling
form and content relationships as well as depictions of products and
ideas are design strategies for motivating audiences. Students will
produce packaging solutions, addressing issues of containment, transportability,
attraction, presentation, communication, and reuse for a variety of
products and ideas. Prerequisite: VISCOM 3003 and VISCOM 3025
VISCOM 4230
Choreography-Site-Construction
In this interdisciplinary studio course, students will explore the concepts
and methodologies of two dissimilar disciplines (environmental design
and performance) to discover interdisciplinary synergies that will uncover
opportunities for the development of their own artwork. Students already
involved in environmental construction will be exposed to the experiential
and choreographic possibilities of space, while students already involved
in performance will be exposed to the expressive potential of urban
contexts and constructions. By exploring intuitive movement improvisations
while also conducting site analysis and planning, students will be empowered
to plan and develop on-site environmental performances and/or off-site
documentation of mega-scale site-specific proposals. This studio will
be of interest to students in performance, time arts, interior architecture,
visual communication, sculpture, and others interested in making quantum
leaps across disciplines into new territories of intermedia expression.
VISCOM 4250
Multicultural Typography:
Cultural Interfaces
In this course in comparative typography, the class examines issues
related to eastern and western typographic forms and structures, as
well as bilingual visual/verbal communication. Research and discussion
focuses on the relationship of the aesthetic uses of the word and the
communication of particular class, religious, or cultural beliefs and
history. Projects approach the challenging area of cross-cultural visual
communication with text and imagery. Prerequisite: VISCOM 2014.
VISCOM 4340
Interactive Information Architechture
This advanced transdisciplinary studio course addresses issues of electronic
information architecture by applying a combination of design theories
from the fields of visual communication and interior architecture. Students
will draw from both disciplines to employ strategies for analyzing and
organizing complex activities and information. Diagrams will be used
as a planning method to see connections and pathways through complex
sets of information. Students will model from architecture (to analyze
complex sets of activities and behaviors by visualizing relational patterns)
and from visual communication (to visualize patterns inherent in complex
information in order to create cognitive maps that organize information
into interactive visual systems). The explosion of information on the
Internet through the World-Wide Web necessitates new strategies for
design that incorporate multiple layers of information, and that can
transform in time and space. Student explorations will result in the
development of Web-based projects and interactive CD-ROM projects which
may be integrated into specific physical environments. Recommended background:
Advanced capabilities in technology (familiarity with software like
Macromedia Director, Form Z, etc.) or permission of the instructor.
VISCOM 4520
Information and Interaction: Multimedia Design
This class will explore the process of multimedia project development
with an emphasis on interaction design. Some key concerns of the course
are human-centered interfaces, intuitive navigational systems, mixed-media
narratives, and audience-based usability testing. Student projects will
combine text, sound, images, and movement within 4D-responsive environments.
Current multimedia practices will be surveyed; critical readings and
class discussions will explore the development, structure, and authorship
of interactive digital content.
VISCOM 4530
Interface/Interaction: Designing Experiences
This class will cover the process of creating the relationship between
the user and the interface. The student will learn to design solid user
experience through studying color and type on the screen to information
architecture, web accessibility, and user research methods and analysis.
This class will also cover common mistakes in user interface design
and user research techniques. Upon completion the student will be able
to design and user-proof an interactive design project. Examples of
topics include:
1. Designing Visual Interfaces with the User as Partner
2. Psychology and Psychopathology of Design
3. User Inspection Tools
4. Information Architecture
5. Ethnography and Field Observation Prerequisite: VISCOM 3550
VISCOM 4540
Identity and Systems: Print Design
In this advanced studio course, students will have the opportunity to
develop comprehensive, print media-based graphic design programs. Building
upon conceptual and formal skills introduced in VISCO 3500, students
will explore strategies and methodologies of content development to
produce refined visual communications (i.e., graphic identity programs,
promotion/ information systems, publications) which will engage their
audiences in a physically-interactive way. Prerequisite: VISCOM 3500.
VISCOM 4570
Interface and Structure: Web Design
This course is an introduction to world wide web digital design. The
class will review current visual communication practices on the Internet,
considering the basic concepts of information architecture, developing
core technical and design competencies, and exploring the fundamentals
of motion and interaction design. Students’ projects will employ
a range of communication metaphors, from static, page-based work to
responsive, multimedia-influenced approaches. The class encourages a
critical examination of Internet culture, and challenges students to
expand the creative potential of the medium.
VISCOM 4570
Web Design
This advanced studio course seeks new ways to navigate through 4-D environments,
challenging common interface paradigms. Students are encouraged to build
4-D spaces that are expressive, dynamic, and experiential, while retaining
their intuitive usefulness. The course is designed to teach not just
the “how to” for Internet/Web publishing but also the issues
of why (on the web), who (owns what), what (to say), how (to navigate),
what (type of experience), etc. In addition to the development of web-based
projects, students will be required to research and discuss issues related
to the intellectual, legal, social, and creative futures of the Web.
Prerequisite: VISCOM 3500.
VISCOM 4630
Wayfinding And Placemaking:
Urban Graphic Design
In this studio course, students will have the opportunity to develop
a comprehensive environmental graphic design program in the urban environment.
Exploring issues of “wayfinding” (providing information,
orientation, direction, identification, and restriction) and “placemaking”
(providing narrative, memorialization, humanism, and contextualization),
students will consider how the human experience of interior and exterior
public spaces can be orchestrated. Building upon the conceptual skills
introduced in VISCO 3600, students will incorporate additional pragmatic
factors into their design process: project phasing, design development,
design detailing, materials and specifications, contract documentation,
and presentation techniques, to produce a project which demonstrates
a clear understanding of this specialization. Prerequisite: VISCOM 3600.
VISCOM 4640
Object, Place, And Event: Exhibition Design
In this studio course, students explore processes and forms to communicate
information within an experiential environment. The museum historic
context, from “cabinet of curiosity” to “exploratorium,”
is investigated, along with contemporary issues surrounding the presentation
of culture. Topics include: visual display and the framing of perception,
conception, and deception; the subjective and sensory manipulation of
space; social landscape; objects as oracles; and exhibitions as events.
Projects focus on developing interpretive installations through the
use of space, sound, light, touch, movement, media, and text. Students
create work that expands the notion of exhibition to investigate personal,
historic, cultural, and social issues through the contextualization
of place, object, and event. Prerequisite: VISCOM 3600.
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