welcome to design seminar fall 2020

 
This is a first post to the design seminar blog, fall 2020

workworks20 is one of the platforms on/over/through which Design Seminar will happen (as it has done, every semester for at least the last ten years).
The blog is available for use throughout the summer. You are not required, but rather invited, to post what you’re up to, and to comment, ask questions, &c.

Ours is a difficult and weird time. This needs to be acknowledged as we get things under way. I like (and aspire to) this sentiment, from a tweet thread by media thinker/writer/teacher Shannon Mattern (@shannonmattern), that I think is worth quoting —

I would just like to say to all the students planning to start or continue college this fall: our universities might seem to be floundering a bit, but most of us teachers know what we’re doing, and we’re ready to make the absolute best of this...
Given all that’s happening in the world right now, all the crises and changes we’ve experienced over the past several months, what better time to engage in guided, collaborative study? To imagine, And prepare yourselves to build, a better world?
June 19, 2020

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Whatever happens in the “low density,” “socially distanced” near future, we will continue to use this blog, in addition to zoom (or google hangout? or slack? or the like), and (hopefully) meetings in person.

I am considering what might need to change in, or be added to, the course syllabus given our present and ongoing emergency. The syllabus for a previous semester (Fall 2019) can be found here (pdf).

Basic principles will stay largely the same: an emphasis on experimentation; on making things for the feedback (and new opportunities) they provide; on bringing ideas and formal experiments to closure (= completed form); on being reflective practitioners. What these principles mean for each individual will differ according to the individual’s objectives, chosen media, and other factors.

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The seminar blog will eventually be a record of your process; it will be especially useful as a resource when, near the end of the semester, you create a “process book” of work done during the term.

Seminarians should always tag their posts, with their first name (or in JP’s case, initials). By doing so, we can more easily load all the posts of a single student.
I have added tags (“labels”) for all the students, so your tags will appear in right column under the head “posts by.”

The “designers, proposals” pages listed at upper right, are where we will maintain thesis proposals and their updates. I have not yet put your proposals there, as they are still in flux.

Here is a horizontal rule, for a column that is specified to be 660px wide.

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Here is an image, 660px wide, 660 high

spine detail, Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
(Signet Classic CD22, 1960)

same (but different)

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Post your images at full size; they will not ordinarily appear on the blog as the one above, but will expand when their thumbnail is “clicked” on. Videos should be downsized; if too large, they simply won’t work. (Alternatively, post them at youtube or the like, and provide link.)