Syllabus

Class Description (Official)

Here is the current iteration of the description for this class from the Purchase College website↗

Students explore the broad visual possibilities of digitally-delivered, time-based interactive media. The course builds on foundational skills in web development and introduces motion graphics. DES 2460 continues the work of DES 2450 and is a required course for Graphic Design majors.

Description (Informal)

  • You will get better and re-learn HTML+CSS you may have experienced in Lens & Time, as well as DMD1. If you are nervous about this, acknowledge this feeling, and know that I am here to help, not to turn you into a web developer.

  • You will learn a program called Rive for creating animation. You will be able to add these to your websites for class,

  • We will talk about and apply perennial design/aesthetic concepts to your projects. This includes concepts from, but not limited to: typography, aesthetics/composition/Gestalt Theory, painting/drawing/illustration, animation, and motion graphics.

Course Objectives

The objectives of the course are as follows:

  • Gain greater facility with, and reinforce knowledge of, web-based coding (please note this is distinct from learning computer science or becoming a web developer).
  • Learn about the historic, aesthetic, and conceptual components of web-based media.
  • Begin to understand the applications of web-based media with perennial (graphic) design concepts.
  • Understand the technical and production requirements of time-based software at an introductory level.
  • Understand the conceptual and aesthetic components of time-based media at an introductory level.

Expectations

  • You will be on time for class On time does not simply mean being in the classroom when class starts, but in the room and physically and mentally prepared to engage with the material.
  • Limited phone usage Please refrain from checking your phone during class time. If you have an urgent personal matter please let me know. I will do the same.
  • Ask questions (Early! Often!) . You will not understand everything in class. That is totally okay. Asking questions will help you to understand things as well as help me assess what it is you are understanding or not. Disregard the idea that you are "stupid” if you ask questions, or that any specific question is "stupid."
  • Do homework I am structuring the class in such a way that I expect you will work outside of class approximately 4 to 6 hours. I am expected to do this as an Employee of the State of New York, but also in order for you to accrete knowledge, understanding, and agency, you will need to work outside of class.
  • You are not expected to become an expert However, you will need to reconsider some aspects of how you understand computers. As such please, treat any coding or new software like learning a language. Work with your peers and friends, try to “converse” with them. Spend a distributed amount of time over the week, to let your brain “absorb” new knowledge. That is to say, an hour per day over the week is better than five hours the night before.You will be expected to demonstrate that you understand the code we do in class; however, major projects will not require coding.
  • All code requires comments. Some of the code we’re going to do is going to be so simple it is impossible for it to distinguish itself as completely original. We’ll get into it, but comments are the way to keep your code idiosyncratic.

Required Materials

  • A working laptop with access to the internet (assumed to use Windows or Mac OS)
  • VS Code ↗ (or similar integrated development environment)
  • An FTP client, presumably Cyberduck, or lsftp if you want to use the terminal
  • Rive ↗
  • Adobe Creative Cloud ↗ please let me know if you have any issues using or affording any software here.

If you have any problem using or acquiring these materials please do not hesitate to let me know. There is access to laptops for students, but again, I cannot help you with this without knowing it is an issue.

Informal AI Policy

In general, I would strongly suggest, especially for this class, to not use LLM-based-AI (like ChatGPT). Particularly for coding. It is possible that you might use it without it being detectable by me, regardless please be able to explain the functionality of code you are working on.

Please be comfortable with me asking about whether something is AI, it will almost always be out of curiousity and not an accusation.

Additionally, using AI to wholly prompt an assignment as your own work is plagiarism and will be treated as such.

All that being said, whether you use AI or not, support it or not it is important to have some sense of its consequences, I'd suggest videos like the ones below:

Attendance

As you know, Purchase College, SUNY, specifically the School of Art + Design, has a rather oppressive attendance policy (emphasis my own):

There are no excused absences in the School of Art+Design. Three or more absences in any course will result in a failing grade. Excessive tardiness may count as absences. Please see your course syllabi for more details.

This is mostly a good thing, in that it places emphasis on being in class together. However, the realities of life may make this policy feel more draconian than what it was intended to be. Please observe these practical policies:

  • Be on time for class, within 10 minutes of the class's start time, or you will be marked as late (unexcused).
  • Leaving class early without a reason that we mutually acknowledge and agree upon before class, counts as being late.
  • Three latenesses is equivalent to one absence.

I conversely will observe the following policies:

  • I will send an advanced warning to everyone if I’m in danger of being late, and by what amount. This will more than likely be through email. I have to leave ~two hours before class, but I will strive to let you know before this unless there is, for example an issue with public transit.
  • If you arrive late (unexcused or excused) and need to walk through material from class I will make time during a break, in-class work time, or a one-on-one outside of class.

Grading (The Class)

My general policy for grading is as follows:

When you don't give an "eff", that's when you get an F!

Basically, if you care, participate in some meaningful way, and do the work asked of you, you will pass the class. If you do the work exceptionally you can achieve a grade that is conventionally perceived as "good." This grade may not match your expectations.

  • You may contest grades for the class and individual assignments at any time, though I do not guarantee I will acquiesce to your request.

Your grade is broken down as follows:

  • 40% → Participation
  • 40% → Projects
  • 20% → Exercises

Additionally the following things will effect your grade:

  • Unexcused absences and the accretion of latenesses will have an effect on your grade. Your grade will be half a letter grade lower. Three latenesses will count as an unexcused absence.
  • You must complete all assignments. If you are missing assignments (projects or exercises), it will effect your grade in the following ways:
    • If you are missing >10% of the assignments the highest grade you can receive is a B
    • If you are missing >25% of the assignments the highest grade you can receive is a C
    • If you are missing >50% of the assignments you will automatically receive an F.

You can increase your grade in the following ways:

  • Any assignment might receive "je ne sais quoi" points. These are at my discretion and for purely subjective reasons. This could be a cute cat collaged into a web page, or a nifty bespoke letter.
  • Our larger projects will have "no shuriken mode" challenges listed somewhere in the project page. These will be suggestions of things you could do to go above and beyond in a given project. These are generally beyond the outlined terms of the assignment's minimums, and are not subjective (i.e. you will not be asked to use a font I, personally, like more than others). These do not guarantee a higher grade, but should be an indicator as to how to make a project "better."
  • If you notice any errors (not simply a page-rendering error, like the styling breaking) on the website, you may report them to me at any time and I will give you a small, but non-negligible amount of extra credit.

If you would like Purchase College, SUNY's specific Grading Policies, look here.

Grading (Assignments)

Your assignments will generally include:

  • Projects → These are a larger part of your grade and are, proportionally larger projects. They will take longer to do and will involve some amount of conceptual and technical synthesis or production that requires more time, energy, and thought. These are generally, the projects we will critique.
  • Exercises → These will generally be smaller assignments where the outcome is very clear. This might be, in the interest of learning a technique (software or otherwise) and is mainly to provide a kind of, residue that you performed the task or learned a specific skill.
  • Reading or Viewing Responses → You may be asked to prepare written responses to readings to share with smaller groups and the class. As this class is within a design program, you will be asked to design and typeset these responses (ie these are not book reports). They will be graded in the same category as an "exercise."

Structure (Individual Classes)

We will begin each class with one of the following:

  • Show 'n' Tell you will be asked to talk about something you are interested in for five minutes. This could be your favorite tv show, a trip you went on, work in another class. If you take longer than five minutes I will ask you to continue next class.

  • Stoopid Time You will think of absurd or impossible to answer questions and I, or another student will attempt to answer them.

(people tend to forget these are due, I will try to send an email in advance but please check the schedule for each class about what you may have to do)

Subsequent to that we will do the following, not necesarrily in a specific order:

  • Discussions We will take some time to talk through a reading, viewing, or piece of art/design. You may be asked to make a designed response to it, or get into small groups and talk and then talk to the class.

  • Presentations/Reports/Meetings/Work Time We will take time to update each other on our progress on projects, or work on them. I may also use this time to talk about specialized topics. Because of class size I will probably have to break some feedback sessions on specific projects across multiple weeks.

  • Review Homework We will review what is due next week, and what things may have been forgotten or moved around. The website should reflect this as well.

Structure (Semester)

We will generally have three kinds of days for reviewing work:

  • one-on-ones these will be during in-class work time or via scheduled in-class meetings.
  • progress reports you will give a short update on your relative progress on the projects you are working on. This will be used for technological questions or issues. You will give your progress report to the class, and are expected to invest in your classmates' work.
  • discussion days these will be closer to critique. As projects get closer to completion I will schedule time for people to present "proposed" finals. You may be asked to make modifications and show the project again.

You will be expected to complete all the assignments with a significant amount enough time before the end of the semester so that we may display the work in a show.

Additionally, as I have taught this class before and have some sense of the labor (psychic, physical, emotional, or otherwise) involved in completing projects, I may ask you to start turning your focus to certain projects.

The projects will include:

  • emBODYing the browser creating a drawing of an HTML page about someone you care about. You act as the browser
  • Remapping You will make a more, full-featured website, taking the structure of an experience and "mapping" it to a web-based experience.
  • Motion Story You will take your skills in Rive, to create a motion graphic that tells a story of some kind.

Required Statements

I am required to include the following statements in my syllabi. I will mention additionally how to locate this material in class, as well as in the printed syllabi.