fTom has 5 post(s)

Question:
How can the graphic medium enhance and enrich the verbal message?

Overview:
In our engagement with the world around us, and our routine to “make sense” out of complexity, we take for granted the perceptual and holistic principles this interaction involves. That perception of parts and configurations as a holistic system, or language, depends greatly on the use of socalled “gestalt” principles (i.e., figure-ground, similarity, closure, etc.) and how these serve the purpose to communicate. Since graphic design presents ideas primarily via graphic means, awareness of these perceptual principles is critical for designers to help their products stimulate clarity and unity, curiosity and interest, inquiry and insight. We will look into this power of graphic design to discover how an abstract (non-visual) object like a “word” (a verbal means to represent an idea) can be enriched significantly toward a deep sense of poetic insight due to its graphic/visual delivery, and thus provide a lasting impression of value for the ideas it holds.

Learning objectives:
— Develop visual sensibilities
— Learn about “gestalt” principles and their holistic system as “language”
— Observe the power of the visual to affect the non-visual
— Develop mind-mapping skills
— Become aware of the practice to design for experience

Download the assignment as pdf
Download the lecture notes as pdf

Reflective Tasks

Tom O’s: notes for regular “reflective” practice

Write Daily/ Weekly Reflective Notes:
Knowing (learning) evolves from a dynamic interplay between experience and reflection.
Reflection deepens awareness and insight.

Therefore, make it a daily practice to nurture reflective practice via written notes on your course (this one or others) work and readings: your curiosities, interests, questions for inquiry, delights, challenges, observations, experiences.

Create a quiet moment (if only for a few minutes!), for to act from a quiet mind fosters true insight.
Write spontaneously.
Write, but also feel free to add visual notes, as needed.

Savor this experience of insight.

ALSO: each week share one or more of your reflective notes on work for this course,
via our course blog, and with your section faculty via email!.

Sharing your “insights” allows us (faculty) to be more informed of you:
your interests, thinking and processing of ideas.
Meant as “nothing to prove” but as evidence of your attention to your work, don’t expect a response/critique.

Don’t belabor the task (this is not an English class, not a thesis, not a test!).
Keep writing effortless and simple, in topic and style.
No need to impress anyone with excessive facts or knowledge.

Use any writing style that feels comfortable and natural to you.

Simply practice this reflective mode with sincerity.

NOTE: This practice will also help you toward the final course requirement,
which is to create a Reflective Process Book about your work and what you learned in this course.