(SOME) STUDENT
WORKS:
COURSES:
HISTORY AND POLITICS OF TYPOGRAPHY
intermediate level
From Garamond to Helvetica, typography, by default, carries a Eurocentric history. This course will trace the history of western typography starting with the calligraphic forms of the Romans, to Guttenberg’s first movable font, Modernism, Post-modernism and ending with contemporary trends.
Each meeting we will look at a few sample font faces, study their design and specifically, how they connect to cultural and political ideologies of their times. Does Canada 150 represent Decolonialism, the same way Didot embodied ideas of the Enlightenment, and Futura the ideology of Fascism? Class lectures will focus on their use in printed documents, web and advertising.
The course is structured in two modules: The morning seminar and afternoon studio. This studio will demos will include inDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Students will produce several hands on projects that experiment with active and passive typography.
SUBVERSIVE GRAPHICS:
SOCIALLY ENGAGED ART
intermediate level
In this seminar/studio class we will discuss the complexity of socially engaged art practices, and specifically look at graphics, printed ephemera, books and web based interventions used to activate a public. Looking at the recent history of various art movements, from feminist, to activist, including public art and social practice we will study several artists' work such as The Yes Men, Group Material, Future Farmers, Grennan & Sperandio, Gran Fury, Temporary Services. The studio component of the class will help students develop collaborative works with a community and specific site. Class discussions will include information on public safety, and legal rights.
CODEX IN CONTEXT:
ADVANCED PROJECT SEMINAR
advanced level
This studio/seminar course is for advanced undergraduates, post-bac and grad students who are ready to work independently on a long term project that uses typography, sequencing, language of the graphic arts and the book format. The seminar will meet in the SMFA library and will study and critique contemporary artist’s books, photobooks and lives d’artistes through first hand experience. Students may be working on a one of a kind sculptural book, a photo-digital book, a print on demand, or a small edition printed book.
SELF-PUBLISHING AN ARTIST'S BOOK:
CONCEPT & DESIGN
intermediate level
In this class students will develop the concept and design of an artist's book. The class will introduce you to the basics of publication design, text and image relationship, juxtaposition, sequencing and progresses into developing a personal voice using the book as an art object. You will gain technical skills in inDesign and Photoshop. We will discuss various strategies on how to use found text, personal text, rewriting old text, editing, photographing and illustrating and look at contemporary artist's books for references. The class will address the basics of self-publishing and independent publishing as a way to reach a non-art audience.
TEXTUAL IMAGE / VISUAL TEXT
intermediate level
The charged relationship of text and image is often at the center of the visual and literary arts today. In this course we will engage text and image as theorist-philosophers, literary critics, and artist-writers. This joint English and Graphic Arts course will introduce the historical-philosophical issues at play in various definitions of text and image, while immersing students in the study of modernist and postmodernist literature that you will engage actively and visually as writers and artists yourselves. This co-taught course is designed to improve students' ability to write their own text for their own designs of visual/printed works. In the tradition of F.T. Marinetti and Guillaume Apollinaire, students will write poetry and fiction while attending to how it appears on the page; how is its meaning shaped and mobilized, multiplied and refined, by surrounding text and images? In addition to completing weekly reading assignments and critical essays, students will write, revise, design, produce and distribute their own creative writing and/as visual texts.
RE-IMAGINED GRAPHIC SIGNS
& SYMBOLS
intermediate level
The meaning of a sign is something collective. Each one of us has acquired a set of personal and cultural conventions, as early as our childhood. Graphic structures rely upon conventions like this to form meanings. This class will re-think the process of creating symbols and critiquing existing symbols in our social landscape through personal projects.
THE GRAPHIC ARTS TOOLBOX:
DESIGN, PRODUCTION & ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES FOR ARTISTS
beginning level
Since conceptual art in the 70s artists have employed new strategies to expand their work beyond the border of the gallery space. This course is for the artist who is interested in creating work exploring these alternative strategies. It will introduce you to the basic tools and skills used in the graphic arts, design and dissemination of work in public spaces.
TYPE AS IMAGE
beginning level
This class is designed for artists from various disciplines who use text in their work. It questions the use of type in art making and challenges students to look at typography as mark making. Slide lectures and project assignments will encourage students to work with self-generated expressive text. We will study the vernacular type and the historical development of Western typographic styles. Students will develop a series of compositions using expressive typography. We will explore the relationship between type to architecture, type to the body, and type to sound.