About this course

Visual Thinking is one of two key introductory courses in the Communication Design discipline. In this course, you’ll be learning about how visual communication works in order to create more effective, and more affective designs.  We’ll spend the majority of the course learning how to read and write effective visual compositions in different media.

The primary principles of design that you learned in your foundations classes (contrast, alignment, repetition, proximity, unity, gestalt, hierarchy, space, dominance, balance, color) will play one major role in this class.  Semiotics, or the study of how meaning is constructed, will play another major role. Functionality of your design approaches will be the third major aspect of each project.  Form, meaning and function: these three aspects will be the primary ways in which your design work will be evaluated, and will act as touchstones for our class discussions and critiques.

Our in-class time will be spent in studio lectures, hands-on demonstrations, in-studio explorations of various visual solutions, discussions and critiques.

While we are working, our focus as visual problem solvers will emphasize the process of design: research, hand-sketching, prototyping, informal inquiry, and production. This course will help you use appropriate technology to communicate your ideas (focusing on three software applications most commonly used in professional practice — Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign). Gaining an understanding of software will be part of the course content. However, software “chops” are of lesser importance than understanding how to create a meaningful, aesthetic visual presentations. 

This course will:
- introduce you to communication design and its basic elements
- provide you with some “real-world” communication challenges
- introduce you to a wide variety of tools to help you communicate effectively
- provide a positive critical atmosphere to facilitate aesthetic appreciation of good design and effective communication
- education on the options available to you as a professional in the design field

Additionally, the following subjects will be explored:
- design history
- typography
- paper stock specification
- on-line presentation 

 

MSCD Catalog Description

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental theories and principles of communication design. Emphasis is on creative problem solving techniques, processes, and concepts which integrate specific design technologies. Within this context students will gain an awareness of how design functions broadly within society today as a provocative communicative force.

Goals

• Express the elements of design (form, content, meaning) in practice.
• Identify appropriate technology for given assignment.
• Describe the function of visual problem solving.
• Recognize how design fundamentals can be utilized conceptually (type, image, space).
• Translate communicative messages into visual language.
• Explain and interpret technical and compositional aspects of in-progress and finished work.

Prerequisites

ART 1100, 1180, 1200, 1210, 2001, 2002. Core prerequisites are mandatory: Basic Drawing 1, Intro to Digital Art and Design, Design Processes and Concepts 1 + 11, World Art 1 + 11.