Graduate Studio: Visual Narrative

Graduate requirement for majors – 6 credits

Spring 2009

This studio course is based on the premise that narrative is fundamental to human communications. Digital technology, continuing to transform the fabric of design, facilitates the use of narrative structure (sequence, time, space, etc.). This enables the designer to provide the user with vital experiences using text, sound, image and motion through various media such as film, video, installation, and digital technology. Faced with new options and challenges this design transformation has also brought increased expectations from designers for more diverse knowledge and skills. Like the film director the designer must know different disciplines intimately: the photographer’s framing mind and lighting skills; the musician’s feeling for sound, noise, and rhythm; the sculpture’s vision for mass and materials; the painter’s sensibility for form, color, and composition; the architect’s playfulness with space, time, and sequence; and the writer’s wittiness with words and language. In this context we will examine the unique aspects of visual narrative as a fusion of sight, sound, and time operating in a dynamic environment.

Taught by:   Bethany Johns   Lucinda Hitchcock      

Course #: GRAPH 324G

Graphic Design majors only

Prerequisite:  Graduate Studio I