Reading 5-due Monday, Nov 14

"Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino

Discuss in 3 paragraphs or more how "Invisible Cities" relates to the last project In/visible Borders. You can reflect on how the notion of a city or demarcated space is constructed through memory, desire and signs/symbols.

Reading 4-due Oct 11th

Language of Vision, Ellen Lupton
Street Signs and Breadcrumbs, Steve Krug and Roger Black

BRING BOTH READINGS PRINTED OUT TO CLASS AND BE PREPARED TO DISCUSS YOUR BLOG RESPONSES WITH THE CLASS-CONSIDER PRINTING THEM OUT AS WELL.

Language of Vision
Bring in an image that you feel exemplifies what Lupton refers to as “perception at the expense of interpretation.” Be prepared to discuss your reasons for bringing this particular image to class.

Street Signs and Bread Crumbs
Select a website that you use to find information and/or make a purchase. Discuss how the site design either aids in its usability or impedes on it based on:
-Primary navigation
-Lower level navigation
-Utilities
-Visual hierarchy of the page
-Breadcrumbs
-choice of appropriate color
-overall page layout
-choice of images

What is successful? What could be improved?
Be prepared to show your site to the class and discuss its features.

Reading 3- due Sunday, Oct 2

Critical Wayfinding-
Why does Ellen Lupton refer to “visual language” as a metaphor?
What does she mean by “perception at the expense of interpretation?”

Modern Hieroglyphs-
Give 3 examples of how signs are culturally specific.
Give 3 examples of how signs create distinctions between class, race and gender.

Language of Dreams-
What is the difference between a pictograph and an ideograph?
What signs would you use to create a rebus for the word “god”? Why did you choose those particular signs?

"Explaining Magic"- Edward Tufte, due Sept 18

"To create illusions is to engage in 'disinformation design'. An inventory of conjuring methods consequently provides evidence about 'what not to do' in the proper arrangement of information- where the point is not at all to baffle the audience but rather to unveil and explain complex data clearly , accurately, mistakably."

"...in work on 'visual masking', 'the reduction of the visibility of one stimulus, called the target, by a spatiotemporally overlapping or contiguous second stimulus, called the mask.' In conjuring, The Mask makes the magic; elsewhere, The Mask makes a lie."

~ Explaining Magic, Tufte

Aside from magic tricks, briefly describe and outline another scenario which uses a target and "The Mask".

Reading Response 1: due Sept 6th

Reading blog responses are due the day before the due date in class. This gives me a chance to read your responses before we discuss the reading in class!

Respond to the following questions for each reading:

Information Anxiety, Richard Saul Wurman:

What does Wurman mean by “a fact can only be comprehended within the context of an idea?”

Use three points (or more) from “Information Anxiety” and your experience with making a mental map to explain how information hierarchies (bias towards specific data) are created.

How do we personalize information?

What are the five ways to organize information? And how does each mode of organization provide new information?

Multiple Ideas/Mulitple Disciplines, Clement Mok:

Explain the difference between identity design, information design and interactivity design. How have information technologies affected the role of the designer. What technologies have had the most impact?

Welcome to ART 320

Reading questions will be posted at this blog spot. To post your comment just click the "comments" link below.