Syllabus

Class Description (Official)

Explores the possibilities and realities of design practice. Students develop a portfolio and a personalized identity package, including a website, modular digital portfolio, letterhead, cover letter, and résumé. Discussions revolve around current issues in the field, professional options, the business of design, and freelancing. Includes guest speakers and field trips to design studios, museums, and related events. Required for graphic design majors.

Class Description (Colloquial)

The professional world and its surrounding influences are constantly in flux. This class is meant to help you find the compass to navigate this universe in a way that is true for you. This includes pragmatic solutions and strategies, anecdotal case studies, and one-on-one and group mentoring.

Objectives

  • Gain greater agency and facility in discussing your design practice and forming a cohesive statement to describe it.
  • Increase the efficacy, profundity, and personal fulfillment around the products of your practice.
  • Understand pathways available to you after graduating from school and their ‘fit’ to your, now more clearly defined, practice.

Course Deliverables

  • 150-word and 300-word design statement→ This will be used in your portfolio and/or website, as well as, a guide for your decision making.
  • Reference CV → This will be both the designed object(s) you present, as well as a document from which you can pull selected information from.
  • Designed Resume (+ linkedin optional)
  • Outreach message (email + social media)
  • Study group reading and presentation (informal)
  • 300-word study group reading opinion piece
  • Slideshow portfolio featuring 3-5 projects with descriptions → This will be either a .pdf or on a website (via ReadyMag, Cargo, SquareSpace, etc.)
  • Personal Website → This will be either a splash page and/or portfolio showcase that visually represents you and your visual statement (via ReadyMag, Cargo, SquareSpace, Notion etc.)
  • Collective Zine → Based on your previous research and readings. A collaboration between both sections.

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.

Informal AI Policy

In general, I would strongly suggest, to not use LLM-based-AI (like ChatGPT). It is possible that you might use it without it being detectable by me, regardless, please be able to explain your decision-making regarding anything that might have been created or augmented by AI.

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. That being said, using the Object Selection Tool in Photoshop, or extending a photograph by 10 pixels is less objectionable, and more than likely harder for most "aesthetically sensitive" people to detect.

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:

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 per unexcused absence. 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. They will have their own grading rubric outlined for their completion and evaluation.
  • 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. These will generally be pass/fail, or will be based on the number of questions in a given exercise. Otherwise, grading criteria will be provided in the related page on the website.
  • 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."

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.

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.

Projects

Project 01 → Statement & CV

  • Write and design a résumé that highlights your work experience, background, and skills.
  • Write a design statement to communicate your background and approach to design. A short writing exercise will help you practice crafting an engaging piece of communication with a specific audience in mind.

Project 02 → Portfolio

Edit and refine your current body of work into a well-polished, cohesive portfolio. We’ll focus on documentation quality and consistency, layout design, project descriptions, editing, and sequencing. Ultimately, your portfolio should showcase your strongest works in a way that conveys your thought processes, skills, sensibility, and professionalism.

Project 03 → Personal Website

Design, produce, and publish a website to introduce yourself to the world. Compared to the portfolio, your website gives you even more leeway to express yourself as a designer and doesn't require you to include every piece of your work. You can code your site from scratch or customize existing content management systems (CMS) such as Cargo Collective, Squarespace, WordPress, or Tumblr.

Project 04 → Collective Zine

This will be the product of both sections and will serve as evidence of your research into contemporary designers and the state of the design field.

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.