PROJECT 5 // FINAL CRITIQUE REQUIREMENTS

deliverables for final critique

• physical mock-ups of each artifact
• pdf presentation of your portfolio-quality documentation images
• swf file of your dvd menu

due in my CAS dropbox before class

• pdf presentation
• high-quality jpg of your poster if you did one
• "high quality print" pdfs of dvd cover and disc, and book cover if you did one
• final .swf file of your menu

crit process

• 5 minutes max presentation from each group, including viewing the dvd menu (all files accessed from my computer). this counts toward your craft / presentation grade.
• 10 minutes max feedback, beginning with one other group. this counts toward your participation grade.
• rejoice for getting out of class early

PROJECT 5 // COLLABORATION ASSIGNMENTS

trying to match you all up based on your preferences was insanity. i did the best i could. here you go. no complaining.

section uno
michael jumper / patrick drake

erica downing / mckenzie marston

sam mak / joshua vaughn

ivan alonso / abby carr

jessie ren / sam kearns


section dos
eli brumbaugh / jessi wilson

erika goering / lillie schenk

matthew jacobs / jessica rojas / michael armstrong

collin rausch / david white

PROJECT 5 // GETTING STARTED

your final project is on the sidebar to the right, under "course materials". learn it, know it, live it.

we will be watching the film on friday, so until then, prepare for the project by researching the media. look at dvd covers, dvd menus, movie posters, and any other relevant media or things related by subject matter (ex: an inconvenient truth or other enviro-esque images).

post a few of your favorites to your blog and we will do some sharing in friday's class.

PROJECT 4 // CRITIQUE PROCESS

here is the scoop on how crit will go and what you'll need to bring to present:

place on my CAS dropbox at least 10 min before class:

• put the files specified below into a folder called "image-4-firstnameLastname"
• a pdf presentation of images labeled "image-4-firstnameLastname-pres.pdf".
  in indesign, make your page size 1024 x 768 and drop in your image sequence. export to "smallest file size" pdf.
• individual high quality jpgs or tifs of each image. label them "image-4-firstnameLastname1.tif", "image-4-firstnameLastname2.jpg", etc, etc

presentation
prepare a two-to-three-minute statement for the e-book publisher about why these covers are the ones to use. keep in mind that the work should speak for itself, but consider what you can say to further convince the client. consider the publisher's motivations (to sell books, but what else?). consider also the context, the reader's experience, and anything else you can use to build your case.

take this presentation seriously. many of you have not prepared well for past presentations and are not impressing me at all in this area. time to step it up.

you will then be the primary critic for the following classmate's project. your criticism will count toward your participation grade.

on your blog
post the final three book covers and a brief explanation of anything significant you learned from this process. the writing will count toward your participation grade.

PROJECT 4 // PROCESS POSTING

if you have not already done so, please post the following to your process blogs:

• your minimum of 15 initial concept sketches presented before our field trip
• tight color comps of your final direction that were presented in class friday april 1

make sure these are on your blog by 5pm april 8.

PROJECT 4 // STORY LINKS

flannery o’connor
the life you save may be your own
good country people
a good man is hard to find

william faulkner
barn burning
dry september
a rose for emily

edgar allan poe
the black cat
the cask of amontillado
the telltale heart

rw/2 field trip

we are going on our rw/2 field trip on friday march 25 during the afternoon class. i'm working with marty to shuffle your classes a bit so both sections can have image class that afternoon.

i'll need five drivers to volunteer, each carrying three passengers with them. from drivers i will need a photocopy of your license and current proof-of-insurance. if i can get five drivers to comment on this post, that would be awesome. and i'll need your info either friday or monday when we return from break.

thanks y'allz.

direccciones:
2010 mcgee st in the crossroads
north on main to 20th st,
right on 20th st,
3 blocks to mcgee,
right on mcgee
parking lot on the right side at the corner.

PROJECT 3 // FINAL CRITIQUE

final critique will consist of in-class presentations of the work through projecting the websites and written peer critiques.

presentations
you will have two or three minutes to show off your website to the class and discuss what you learned through this process. it can be about concept development, iterations, working in a series, setting up photos, technical issues, anything you learned.

written peer critiques
before friday's class, post one screen grab of your website and title the post, "the seven deadly sins" or "the seven holy virtues" (or whatever your website title is). include the link to the site.
in class, you will comment on two classmates' posts, answering the following questions

• how strong or memorable is the overall concept?
• which images illustrate the sin/virtue the best and why?
• which images need the most work and why?
• what are the technical strengths/weaknesses of the work (lighting, tonal range, color, focus, etc)?

each round will last about 10 minutes.

PROJECT 3 // CONSIDERING CONTEXT

first, a quick thought / reminder : make sure you post your images from friday's process crit on your blog. those pics will be a major contributor to your process grade. not all, of course, but a big part.

we talked briefly during the process crit friday about whether viewers will understand these images seeing them totally on their own, without some point of reference. well, i realized that's an unfair way to judge them because the whole point of giving them a "home" in a website (or book or poster or whatever) is because that object / medium becomes the delivery device and that delivery device is always situated in a larger context. people will not randomly see your image about "greed" out on the street because you are designing it to appear in a website alongside six other images, with a predetermined title page and introduction that sets up expectations for the images.

soooo, finalize your approaches to this project knowing that viewers will enter into the website seeing a title of "the seven deadly sins" or "the seven holy virtues" (refer to project sheet for exact language). that title will set up some expectations and conjure up some connotations, which you will then deliver in a most creative, engaging and memorable way. good luck!

PROJECT 3 // SERVER ACCESS

your final project will be a set of published html docs, hosted on kcai servers. here's how to upload your files:

- from your desktop, go to "go > connect to server" (apple-k)
- in the "server address" box, input "afp://brutus"
- click "connect"
- input your kcai email username and password
- go to"design >
- drop html files in your folder
- be sure to name your title page "index.html"
- access files via a browser using http://design.kcai.edu/username

PROJECT 2 // CRIT STRUCTURE

for the "constructed image" project, each student will have two minutes to present their work to the museum exhibition coordinator (me) and explain how this is the proper image to promote the exhibit. consider the motivations and needs of the exhibition director:
- will they care how hard it was to rig the lighting?
- will they care about how many people come to the exhibit, and the role this piece plays in that?
- will they care about your process?
- will they care about how the subject's life is portrayed?
- will they care about the clarity and meaning of the image?

after each student's explanation, five minutes will be given for open class criticism.

PROJECT 2 // POST-CRIT

the issue of lighting was brought up in section two -- how to use the lights in the photo studio. well, i'm no expert, but i know a couple of tricks and i'm sure some of you do also. soooooo, let's do a little skill share after each critique during class on friday.

we will keep final crit concise and then go over the new project and any questions. then, we will go into the photo room with a few people's project setups and play around. so if a couple or three people from each section have simple and smallish setups still in studio, we will put those on the table/floor and play around a bit and share ideas and tricks. sound good?

PROJECT 2 // MORE THOUGHTS

jamie, marty and i were talking over lunch today, and we want to make sure you all are taking time to step back and make connections between each class during the semester, and making connections between semesters. here are a couple of examples:

- what have you learned from your dot / type studies about the layering of images and type that can be applied to the current image project? i'm talking about physical materials and construction as well as the conceptual relationship between word and image.

- what have you learned from your line studies about methods for translating form -- projecting in space vs flat, analog vs digital, moving between the two, etc?

don't forget to take that time to remember what you've learned. don't forget to take time to talk to each other about possibilities and ideas, concepts / processes / methods.

PROJECT 2 // THOUGHTS

regarding friday's process crit
bring a full-size (2' x 3' minimum) tiled print. black and white is acceptable but have the color image ready to show on your laptop.
this image will give you something to respond to. it will force you to make something rather quickly rather than languish in "concept land" forever. the sooner you make something, the faster you will progress toward making a great image. if time allows, do a couple of rounds of this. don't just throw stuff together and make one shot and print. try some variations. move things around. switch out objects. try different lighting. 


regarding connotation and denotation
today (wednesday) in section two we discussed what you photograph (denotation) vs how you photograph it (how connotations are created). this is directly from the "semiotics 2" lecture. consider how composition, lighting, relationships between objects, etc, all produce connotations, and thus, have meaning. example: an apple appearing very small on the poster, barely in a spotlight and off to one side may connote a shy person. an apple large on the page, in motion, at an angle, may connote a loud or flamboyant or active person. how you photograph your objects can be just as important as the objects themselves.

don't forget project requirements
- name
- quote
- minimum of three indices/symbols
- no icons

lemme know if you have questions or concerns. many of you have a lot to pull together for friday. good luck!

GRADE SHEET EXPLAINED

i'm trying out a new grading sheet that i hope will be more helpful to you since it is more visual. my hope is that it will allow you to track your progress through the semester in each of the four criteria.

up top you will see each project listed, and its weight relative to the other projects this semester (how much it counts toward your final grade). down the left side you can see the four criteria and how much weight each area has in determining your project grade. underneath the scores is your final score and letter grade.

the bar chart at the bottom is my spreadsheet-esque way of trying to visualize the relative success or failure of your efforts for each project. each category is colored differently and you can see that on project one, this student did best on craft/pres and participated pretty well. but the conceptual and formal aspects of the final piece (objectives) were average and process was below average. the final score is the darkest bar.

you should be able to easily see that the final scores for each project generally increased, with the exception of project four. we'll just say that the late nights were spent nursing liquids and not ideas during that project, if you know what i mean.

i will simply add on to this sheet for each project, so you can see your overall progress. let me know if you have any questions about it.

PROJECT 2 // THE CONSTRUCTED IMAGE

the brief for project two is on the right sidebar. check it out and get started with research for next class. post your thoughts on possibilities and decisions to your blog, as well as a brief collection of info on your person. it needn't take the form of a paper, more a collection of information or facts, but still cite your sources.

do "type image message" reading for next class.

PROJECT 1 CRIT

critique will follow this format:

• you will respond to one of your peer's projects, interpreting it and making sense of what you see. you are basically thinking out loud here.
  - is it interesting upon first glance?
  - what makes you want to keep looking at it, if anything?
  - what does it mean?
  - what kind of mood or persona do you get from it?
  - what is it telling you about this person?
  - address also the level of care in making the images themselves as well as the construction of the piece. 
  
• the rest of the class will then have a few minutes to share any differing responses or interpretations to the work.
• the designer will then discuss their intentions in making the images. this will give us an idea of the distance between designer's intent and audience reception. the designer of the piece should explain
  - why each image fits into its respective sign category,
  - why the particular symbol was chosen,
  - anything significant that was learned through this process.

YAY

DAY ONE INFO+HOMEWORK

in class:
- review syllabus
- get to know each other in some awkward fashion
- receive project one; discuss
- basic semiotics lecture
- get your photographin' on!

FIND+SHARE

use this community space to link up projects, websites, and the like that are about image making. of particular interest are photography sites / photographs (both design and art-related), imagery in relation to type, unusual techniques/processes, collage, illustration, technical stuff, etc, etc.

we will try to look at these on a regular basis so everyone is nicely up-to-date with the contemporary imagemaking landscape.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

1
all project descriptions, objectives, specifications and deadlines will be posted here. it is your responsibility to check regularly for important updates, new assignments and topical references.

2
i intend the blog to function as an ongoing dialog and extension beyond the classroom. if you have project-specific questions that arise outside of class please ask. everyone is welcome to reply and i will respond on/before online hours or in class.

3
required readings and discussion topics are provided to clarify and expand your knowledge of issues addressed in studio and design in general. we will discuss these either as a class or you will be asked to post responses to this blog.

4
visual & creative inspiration abounds online and i encourage you to embark upon serendipitous or purposeful surfing. once you find something relevant to this class that is share-worthy post it to "find+share".

5
occasionally i will assign an online crit in order to provide an alternative forum for classroom feedback and collaborative effort.
if those reasons aren't enough to get involved, remember, your online presence does count toward your online participation grade. i evaluate post quality and quantity, which is factored into individual project grades under the "process" and "participation" sections.