Required Books
Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. New York, NY: Walker and Company, 1998. ISBN: 9780802713421.
Carter, Rob, Ben Day, and Philip Meggs. Typographic Design: Form and Communication. 4th ed. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. ISBN: 9780471783909.
Britt, David, ed. Modern Art: Impressionism to Post-Modernism. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson, 2008. ISBN: 9780500238417.
Readings by Lecture
| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | |
| 2 |
Paper and making marks on it Typography, technology, and perception | Carter, chapter 7 |
| 3 |
Look at type, on hard- and softcopy In-class exercise, "making letters" | Carter, chapter 1 (please bring Carter to class today) |
| 4 | Video screening: Helvetica by Gary Hustwit | |
| 5 | Discuss essay 1 | Standage, chapters 1-5 |
| 6 | Continued discussion of type | Carter, chapters 2-4 (please feel free to read further) |
| 7 | Continued discussion of essay 1 | |
| 8 | Temporal and sequential media | |
| 9 | Discuss exercise 1 | Standage, chapter 6 through epilogue |
| 10 |
Guest lecturer: Walter Bender Color: physics, psychophysics, and aesthetics |
Britt, chapter 1
Jacobson, N., and W. Bender. "Color as a Determined Communication." Explore Apple Computer's color pages |
| 11 | How electronic displays work and why we care | |
| 12 |
Guest lecturer: Walter Bender Color: physics, psychophysics, and aesthetics (cont.) Discuss OLPC XO (One Laptop Per Child) hardware and the Sugar environment | |
| 13 | Discuss OLPC XO machine design | |
| 14 |
Hand out XOs Discuss first Python/Pygame example programs | |
| 15 | Modern art | Britt, chapters 2-3 |
| 16 | Discuss exercise 2 | |
| 17 | More modern art | Britt, chapters 4-5 (feel free to read further if you wish) |
| 18 | Discuss sound on the XO | Manuals for CsoundXO and CsoundXO Python (see exercise 3) |
| 19 | Discuss essay 2 | |
| 20 | Discuss essay 2 (cont.) | |
| 21 | Discuss exercise 3 | |
| 22 | Discuss exercise 4 / essay 3 | |
| 23 | Discuss essay 3 (cont.) | |
| 24 |
"Final project clinic" In-class exercise: GTK Csound (aka exercise 5) | |
| 25 | To be announced | |
| 26 | Presentation of student work — invite your friends! |