Basics

Jennifer Cole Phillips, Associate Director, Graphic Design MFA Program, MICA

John Bowers, Chair
Visual Communication Program
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

This presentation will examine the place of social issues in writing a narrative of basic design. The second edition of my book Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function (John Wiley and Sons, 2008) will be used as a case study. Questions of (content) relevance, (reader) participation, and (narrative/positioning) strategy will be addressed through examination of the pragmatic constraints and underlying ideology - rooted in social responsibility - that shaped the writing, image selection, and design.

Sean Bolan | Doctoral Researcher, Educational Psychology | Lecturer, Division of Design | University of Washington | Education Director, AIGA Seattle

Learning to See is an insightful examination of a unique undergraduate course created to build critical perceptual skills in developing designers. The course attempts to bridge design with cultural anthropology, communication theory and perceptual psychology to foster a multidisciplinary look at visual language.

Deborah Littlejohn, PhD student, North Carolina State University