Jacob Poindexter Spring 2017
Jacob Po
oindexter
Š Jacob Poindexter 2017 All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in Providence, ri
Contents 03 — Unit 1 — Questions 25 — Unit 2 — Complexity 41 — Workshop 1 — Form 55 — Unit 3 — Manifesto 69 — Workshop 2 — Memes 79 — Unit 4 — Audience 95 — Unit x — Reflections
Thomas Ockerse — Questions
ds4 syllabus — course overview and objectives
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“Unit 1: Questions What is the field of design and where are my interests? Thomas Ockerse Graphic design today is afield of practice with an expansive range of opportunities to apply one’s skills and interests. This fluid nature of the field makes self-awareness helpful, if not essential. Self-awareness also allows preparedness for uncertainty, risk, unintended consequences, and surprise — all helpful since the design-process is not really formulaic. Furthermore, to respond to any design challenge begins with self-directed inquiry and questions, not answers, which makes the design process in turn a rich means for greater self-awareness. To prepare you for what lies ahead Unit #1 helps you map out your design interests and why.”
Group brainstorming notes — defining Graphic Design 06
- Reflection 2/20: - What is design? - very broad, encompasses many fields/practices - influential: changes modes of thought, shapes/is shaped by cultures and societies - communication: transmission of ideas - can’t necessarily be defined, so broad that it takes on different meanings according to different people and groups - should it be defined? yes: on a personal or group level: keep definition specific in order to be useful to the designers - when forced into a singular definition it becomes too generalized, loses its impact/meaning - my interest in design started out as an interest in the specific visual modes of communication offered by design: aesthetic/technical/artistic appreciation
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Why define Design?
How can the voice of a Designer of privilege be redirected in order to amplify the suppressed voices of oppressed peoples?
Does Design have enough independence from cultural and other contexts to be defined generally? 08
Is there a benefit to the codification of Design, or does generalization rob Design of its meaning?
What role does aesthetics play in Design, and should it be subservient to communication?
Does Design act as as an extension of the Designer’s voice and values, or those of a larger group? 09
Can Design reflect global thought or values?
To what degree can design reshape society?
Can Design, having been born of Capitalism and coexisting with oppressive societal systems, simultaneously exist within those systems and subvert them? 10
How can a Designer of privilege subvert their privilege and Design’s link to systemic oppression in order to use their position to redistribute power and agency? Unit 1 Part 1 — questions pertaining to Graphic Design - Reflection 2/22: - Unit 1 Part 1: - no such thing as ‘timeless” design: temporality is essential to human experience, no designer has a claim to such a high degree of universality - the divides between design and art are constructed, and can be reshaped or broken entirely - can design exist without an audience? Yes: the designed actions of a designer don’t need an audience to exist - are details important if audience isn’t aware of them? yes: subliminal communication, details still seen/absorbed whether or not they’re understood - any human intervention is designed - “design isn’t the protagonist of the story, its the book itself” - does the internet make information more permanent? no: every designed piece of data is temporal, some are more permanent than others, regardless of platform - Pablo: cleanliness in design is a crutch, “will the new celebration of ugly digital design continue? - there’s always an audience, all work is designed: designer can self-reflect/communicate - why does design have to fulfill a service/need and be connected to capitalism? it’s just communication 11
Q 01
Why define Design?
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Does Design have enough independence from cultural and other contexts to be defined generally?
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Is there a benefit to the codification of Design, or does generalization rob Design of its meaning?
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What role does aesthetics play in Design, and should it be subservient to communication?
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Does Design act as an extension of the Designer’s voice and values, or those of a larger group?
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Can Design reflect global thought or values?
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To what degree can design reshape society?
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Can Design, having been born of Capitalism and coexisting with oppressive societal systems, simultaneously exist within those systems and subvert them?
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How can a Designer of privilege subvert their privilege, and Design’s link to systemic oppression, in order to use their position to redistribute power and agency?
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How can the voice of a Designer of privilege be redirected in order to amplify the suppressed voices of oppressed peoples?
Unit 1 Part 2 — questions in poster survey format 12
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Unit 1 Part 3 — questions in poster format
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- Reflection 2/22: - Unit 1 Part 3: - stop trying to be so universal in my work, it can’t encompass all that I want it to, know my audience - for the posters: stick to my voice, make it more personal, communicate ideas formally in a more effective way - Greta: use my specific “Jacob voice:” allows for expansiveness and relatability - what’s a poster? defined by the designer, usually static, printed, fits within a range of sizes defined by printing standards (can really be any size?) - producing visual culture: grassroots, intimate, pierces into audience’s everyday life - designers control/manipulate information: what is communicated, how the information is framed: huge amount of responsibility: words can be dangerous - Reflection 2/27: - Unit 1 Part 3: - how can I design something well, spending time on form-making and craft, thinking deeply about concept, and have the resulting poster be urgent and personal, without seeming forced or disingenuous? - move from obscure visual languages of this set of 3 posters to a language thats more clear, tied to the message, and immediately recognizable: protest-signage - is my writing, or that of others, more important? How can I design authentically from my own perspective when my perspective is steeped in privilege? Even if I elevate others’ voices, it feels like I would be co-opting their oppression, or accepting credit for lived struggles and the wisdom they produce - continue to work towards allyship?
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- Reflection 3/1: - Unit 1 Part 4: - design should be: honest, urgent, bold, prominent, personal - handmade signage: reproducible, cheap: suggestion of proliferation, expansiveness - single message: “how can the voices of designers of privilege amplify the suppressed voices of oppressed peoples???” - biggest question for me at the moment - how can I design for social change when every aspect of my identity is that of the oppressor? - what good will adding my voice do when there are so many others who know so much more, have lived through such different experiences, and can understand social inequity in ways I could never imagine? - what can I expect of myself? be an accomplice in their work - double message to poster text: how can the / voices / of designers / of privilege / amplify / the suppressed / voices / of oppressed / peoples??? - voices / amplify / voices - final result seemed to be successful, Ben’s feedback was all positive/affirming, which was good, but don’t we share almost the exact same identity? How do I digest/consider/navigate the feedback of professors who have always been white? They have more experience, but they don’t have the experience of the most victimized groups, its all 1 or many more steps removed - tiling of posters: more effective, speaks to proliferation and urgency, group mentality - tape at corners forming right angles and squares kind of distracting, unnecessary visual element
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Unit 1 Part 4 — final poster process
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Unit 1 Part 4 — poster exhibit flier process
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22 Unit 1 Part 4 — poster exhibit in the gd Commons
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Diane Lee — Complexity
“Unit 2: Complexity In what ways can complexity manifest itself in design? Diane Lee As designers, we are often called upon to distill ideas, information, and narratives into clear, digestible forms using an economy of means. At its best, graphic design informs and engages, but our streamlined output sometimes has the unintended effect of perpetuating assumptions, glossing over critical details, or presenting a limited point of view. In this unit, you will be asked to surface and communicate complexity. You will analyze parts of our everyday experience that otherwise go unexamined, identifying assumptions and incorporating overlooked details, in order to allow new understandings and design actions to emerge.” - Reflection 3/8: - Unit 2 Part 1: - systems surrounding spoon: context, relationships, interest, spoon as an object has some formal/functional/industrial interest, but not that much - object symbolic of systems in place that surround it: production, exchange, disposability/reusability - individual vs. collective - normalized theft (?): holes in the system: room for speculative design - how does simplicity/complexity relate? - simplicity of shitty milled low-grade steel spoon speaks to the relatively complex systems and structures surrounding the object, its manufacture, and use - what’s the point of this project
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- Reflection 3/6 - Unit 2 lecture: - simplicity: not composite - complex: weaving together of multiple threads - elaborate, entangle, - Diane assuming all design is overly condensed? not really, design is used to systematize, clarify, create a platform for, organize, (re)frame all amounts of content - even in corporate branding identities, in which the entirety of the company is symbolized with an extremely distilled brand/logo/perspective, there’s always many layers of content/information/parts: just levels of information in a hierarchy/system - presentation seems pretty vague, are the assumptions flawed? presentation designed like Apple: intentional? - I don’t get it - why are we back in DS1? Unit 1 seemed enough of a conceptual/analytical/self-reflective/reflexive introductory exercise, is this the structure of the whole course? this is all very repetitive… - Tom semiotics lecture: - oh my god, we’ve been over this - “how does phenomenology of design relate to ontology?” directly related? ontology of design or designer? wtf - if ontology of design, then that’s just a tautology: design is a phenomenon because it exists: well no shit - Tom has his own conceptions of semiotics/ontology/ phenomenology, his ideas don’t seem to be coming across, also I’m tired and drawing bees in my sketchbook so…
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Unit 2 Part 2 — rethinking risd Dining systemization
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- Reflection 3/12: - Unit 2 Part 2: - posters by Portfolio advertising new hard-ass spoon system: don’t allow spoons to be taken out of Portfolio: bulky, impractical security gps tracker, each person assigned a spoon that they use to verify the purchase of food, make-your-own-spoon community-building event - annoying, impractical efforts at fixing the system (typical of risd Dining, especially the Met, and risd at large lol) - scope of this mini-project within the unit doesn’t allow these concepts to be delved into, so what am I doing? I’m kind of over long, drawn-out sequences of exercise-based assignments, I’ve already done the work for those for the past year - spoon and its related systems isn’t all that interesting to me anymore - my thinking about the spoon can be wriggled into comparisons/parallels to issues of design and society, but in a forced way that I’m not really interested in, not impactful, more of that self-reflexive self-aggrandizement of the design world that I’m trying to break out of - oh look, I’m sketching more bees, must be a sign (@Tom O_O)
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Unit 2 Part 3 — rethinking risd Dining systemization
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- Reflection 3/15: - Unit 2 Part 3: - stepping even further away from what I thought I wanted to be doing in the class, but I guess I enjoyed it cause I went into the project knowing it would be “selfish,” insular”: stayed within my own work and interest in design theory/history, which is fine I guess - made a nice book, made some fun patterns, that was about it. Aesthetics at its finest, who needs content? I guess we’ll never know - an object in stasis without resolution: good thing, sounds like my practice in general lol - “I made a thing”: something nice about that, kind of indulgent but whatever - Resume/personal identity crit: - technical things to fix, but I reeeeaaaaally like discretionary ligatures fml - resume stock is too heavy but I bought a pack of 100 so that’s not changing - I can’t ever settle on a visual language to represent myself, I’m too in flux as a person right now, I get tired of everything I decide on using really quickly 31
Unit 2 Part 4 — original risd conservative group meeting poster
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Unit 2 Part 4 — poster critical redesign
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Unit 2 Part 4 — curation of Facebook conversation featuring racist conservative student—primary voice behind conservative group 35
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Unit 2 Part 4 — audio recordings of conservative group interest meeting
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- Reflection 3/22: - crit of project from a pair of students in Diane’s class about feminism: - hahahhaha - this isn’t feminism - its pretty sad when a formerly super-problematic white boy (hi) had to educate two women on intersectional feminism, and the multitudinous ways in which their project about the Women’s March in dc was in no way revolutionary, since it only succeeded in perpetuating the narrative of white feminism - it was sooooo problematic - also super annoying how the professor played devil’s advocate (such a bullshit stance to take in regards to these issues, since it only seeks to further the side of the oppressor) - oh, all our professors are white? go figure - hopefully they learned something, they better take the initiative to educate themselves as to why everyone was hypercritical of their concept and formal execution, especially as designers - omggg so stressful, super awkward to be spearheading the conversation considering my white cis maleness - Unit 2 Part 4: - this school is pretty shit for entertaining the views of racists/ sexists/everything-ists, when they don’t even attempt to fix systemic issues within the administration and university as a whole, as evidenced by the relentless work of baad and others being forced to stage a protest to get Rosanne off her ass, compared to a known white supremacist playing the nice white girl to get her harmless “interest group” for a conservative club at risd, are you fucking kidding me - fuck this school - you can’t shit on this supposed safe space and then turn around and demand your own. Sorry white girl, not how it works - content of my and Ishaan’s joint project worked pretty well, forms could be adjusted to clarify our intent/message - super happy to be tackling this intense of an issue within my major, despite my personal rage/frustration/stress about the issue
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Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein — Form
Workshop 1 — Bob’s Burgers Burger Book — inspiration for form-making
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Workshop 1 — form-making explorations
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Workshop 1 — cookbook cover redesign
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- Reflection 4/5: - Workshop 1: - why are there so many exercise-based projects? - we’ve already done this exact project at least 5 times, why was it framed in a way that implied it was this brand-new eye-opening experience for us young designers?? - the guy was kind of condescending and seemed disingenuous, its like the visiting designers weren’t prepared for us as an audience/our proficiency as designers - the project was fine, but the assignment in general was super basic and unnecessary - I don’t think I gained any significantly valuable insights from this, a little bit disappointed
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Benjamin Shaykin — Manifesto
“Unit 3: Manifesto How do you work, and why? Benjamin Shaykin A manifesto is a statement of purpose — a set of beliefs and intentions given written form. Within graphic design the manifesto has a rich and varied history, from the founding of the Arts & Crafts and Futurist movements, to the social responsibility of First Things First, to the process-based approach of Conditional Design, to name just a few. The manifesto may be political, personal, aesthetic, procedural — or it may necessarily be a combination of all of these. How might a manifesto inspire new work? Could the writing, publishing, and distribution of a manifesto be a new work in and of itself?”
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Unit 3 Part 1 — group manifesto
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Unit 3 Part 3 — manifesto publication
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- Reflection 4/10: - Unit 3 Part 1: - yes! Go Ben! This is exactly what I want to be doing right now - design work coming from privileged designers can never not be political, or removed from the context of oppressive societal systems - “What would it mean to make resistance an integral part of the design process?” - What should my role be as a designer of immense privilege? Is it simply about catalyzing discourse about political activism and social justice? What does that really do in a relatively closed, academic environment? I’m in some form of echo chamber, but there are many white and more privileged people at risd who are very unaware of and uneducated about intersectional issues, and even some who consciously don’t care, and don’t make a concerted effort to enact change. - Can I influence those who are privileged, ignorant, and/ or unwilling through my work? - Does every single design piece I make need to be political, or only the work that is afforded a larger platform in contexts where people need to hear the message? - How much work can I afford to allocate to my other interests or ideas? There doesn’t seem to be a good way to balance self-expression and making with a duty as extreme as allyship. - Some work is probably necessary that’s detached from my duties as an ally, since allyship and immersion in the realities of oppression is stressful and depressing. - but oppressed people can’t take a break from their oppression. I literally face nothing, virtually no problems internally or externally besides my own complicity in oppression. - Self-care is important, but I can see myself quickly making excuses to dodge the ally work I am able to do. - How do I understand and confront the irony, as pointed out by a woman of color who’s close to me, in my status as a privileged
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designer, who is automatically afforded the benefit of increased objectivity, intelligence, and authority on issues that do not personally affect me, who is using his platform to discuss oppression, while simultaneously taking up space, sitting in the ivory tower of design and academia? - Same person mentioned that she views gd as the one major where social issues can be addressed most openly and explicitly, since gd is linguistic/formal/visual communication, with a broad platform and influence. She and I see a majority of white designers in the department as very self-involved, pretentious, and intensely esoteric at the worst, and well-intentioned, somewhat ignorant of larger social realities, uninvolved, and intent on producing work that is largely superfluous, at best. - irony of the phrase used in another student’s Unit 1 work: “Fuck the esoterum”: an intrinsically esoteric sentiment, in an esoteric context, from a person with esoteric interests - how is this kind of glaring self-contradiction approached? - Should students who choose not to engage politically with their work be shamed for it? It’s not really shaming if they’re privileged, especially in terms of race and gender, and choose to shroud themselves in privilege as an escape from others’ marginalization.
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- Reflection 4/17: - Unit 3: - I’m skeptical of creating a manifesto as part of a group, the other members don’t share my same concerns for design and the dismantling of oppressive power structures, since they’re removed from them and don’t experience the same degree of marginalization as others do - our manifesto is about contradictions, but what are we actually saying? whats the point of saying “different people have different views” when we’re not talking about the views themselves? - concept of “body:” inhabited, manifest, oversimplified, depersonalized - our manifesto speaks to the “body” of gd and all that it encompasses, and the smaller “bodies” and individuals that contribute to the whole - gd definitely oversimplifies “bodies” in order to make sense of them, but is that even a good thing? no, especially when discussing oppressed bodies - white people definitely need to release their death grip on non-white bodies, they need to treat them as people, and represent them accurately
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- Reflection 4/24: - ny Times talk: individual principles and standards are hard to maintain in group projects (true) - my craft standards and time commitments were only matched by one group member, while the other conveniently missed the 2 weekends during which we did a majority of the editing and execution work for the final manifesto book *rolls eyes* - this is why i dont like working in groups for these kinds of personally-oriented projects, cause nothing gets done and the final direction thats decided on is too watered-down - “the truth doesnt take sides”—bullshit, why would that be part of the Times’ “truth” list, when obviously certain sides/groups/ ideologies are more on the side of truth? seems like a dumb addition. I like the rest of the new campaign though - late-night reflection: - every time I reflect I get sad - I take a winding path through memory - An ocean, from the edges of my mind, laps at the forefront - Oceans, worlds, leaves - Petrified, mummified, frozen, crispy; new life and enriched meaning - The frail golden remembrances tumble and skitter; they are not disconnected; the ocean current carves out their path - Wandering, wondering. Wondering, wandering. Winding - The golden-amber filigree of my past - I lie here, I am drowning in a flood that is me I am lying here I drown in a flood that is mine I lay here I drowned in the flood that was - Is that you? - I am becoming - Cellar door - A path - Swing. Bush. Grass. Ant. Bark. Paper. Tooth. Fur. Chalk. Soap. Nest. Sidewalk. Chain-link. Stick. - I have always been disconnected - I have always been an outside observer to that which I observe - A tautology; I am observe - Observatory; always seeing, never being - I am my past
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- I connect once I’ve passed though, past passings pass through, my mind’s fingers - Caress that which you know - That which I know is simply what I know of that - Forever out of reach - One day my reach will be met - we’re steeped in the gd tea - Reflection 4/26: - Unit 3: - so done with the manifesto, it was too restrictive for me and not very impactful, I had to settle for talking about contradictions within gd when I really want to talk about social issues and whiteness in the department directly - also, the feedback from most of the crits wasn’t all that helpful, especially for Tom’s class, which consistently didn’t understand our concept - I feel like I did most of the work at all stages of the project (ideation, concept, editing, execution, etc), group projects are sooooo fucking annoying i cant even
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James Goggin — Memes
Workshop 2 — meme publication
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- Reflection 4/26: - meme workshop: - I’m glad James acknowledged his place of ignorance as a new White male professor - The other profs didn’t really say anything besides their ambiguous thoughts on form and memetics - Do the profs even understand meme culture? Like if you don’t know the confused lady reaction image, what are you even doing? - Also the profs are disconnected from contemporary meme culture due to the generational gap, and they process information and communicate differently than the students’ generation - How can I produce work that rejects the dominant? - Reflection 4/28: - Meeting with Lucy about the wwi poster exhibit: - met with Lucy to discuss the inappropriate display of prowar, nationalistic us propaganda, that didn’t have any context or curatorial voice to give a frame of reference or reason for insensitive imagery and messages - Lucy and Doug mostly understood my and other students’ concerns, but Lucy was annoyingly frustrated with having to
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deal with the fallout herself, since “it was all Doug”, and she “has a life” and didn’t feel like taking departmental responsibility for someone who is, guess what, part of the fucking department - the exhibit was curated by gd faculty, displayed in the gd design center, and affected gd students, so where do you get off telling me that it should be the responsibility of the students to address the issue, not yours? what the fuuuccckkkkk - all the white faculty is detached from the reality of racial systemic oppression, and are unaffected by us imperialistic militarism in foreign policy, and domestic police brutality and state-sanctioned terror - Lucy “got angry” at the suggestion from a friend of mine that I brought up that the idea of a student-curated exhibit about resistance (my idea) would most likely come across as a sorry-igot-caught departmental response, and a shirking of responsibility since the entire onus would be placed on the students - self-described “bad-ass feminist”… if your feminism isn’t intersectional, it isn’t feminism lol, that also includes ignoring the scope of racially oppressed students’ concerns and demands - She even had the audacity to suggest that students nowadays like to complain and talk about issues and then do nothing to solve them… nope, are you fucking out of your mind??? all students have been doing since forever is organizing themselves and fighting injustice themselves and approaching authority diplomatically themselves, all to have the responsibility to make change thrown back on them—those with less power— those who have been fighting and fighting for decades to see very little change actually occurring - She also condescendingly stated that i was too idealistic and my scope/understanding was that of a “20 year old”, like what fuckin ageist bullshit is that? if anyones scope is severely limited, its yours, Madame Department Head - the department has a shit ton of work to do. they better get off their lazy fucking asses and roll up their sleeves and do something with the power they’ve been afforded
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- Reflection 4/30: - Spring Weekend: - erykah badu: write down what you want, write down what you need, tell your friends “I’m happy for you, I’m proud of you, do that shit” - I’m happy for you, I’m proud of you, do that shit - I’m happy for you, I’m proud of you, do that shit - I’m happy for you, I’m proud of you, do that shit - “Erykah is my space mom” - Unit 4 Part 1: - meme format not working: making light of serious issues in the wrong way, language makes it sound like I’m distancing myself from the problematic whiteness of the department
- Reflection 5/1: - Scott Stowell talk: - “Great how he thinks ideas need to be stupid and simple for non-designer people to understand” - pretty basic, designs by Open studio are popular, not revolutionary - “earth’s gonna earth, basically”, the fuck? - so… why did Ben and Lucy feel like he would be a good speaker for us?
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James Goggin — Audience
“Unit 4: Audience Are you talking to me? James Goggin How do we, and how might we, define the myriad audiences for our work as graphic designers? We are traditionally thought of as mediators between sender and receiver. But as contemporary designers (not to mention citizens), we often play the roles of all three: sender, messenger, receiver. This unit will explore questions both in theory and in practice. Who are we talking to as graphic designers? Through which channels? Whose messages are we transmitting? How passive or active is the audience receiving the messages? What happens once our work is released into the wild?�
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Unit 4 Part 2 — revised memes — circulation
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Unit 4 Part 3 — revised memes — circulation
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Unit 4 Part 4 — revised memes — systemization
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Unit 4 Part 5 — revised memes — circulation
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Unit 4 Part 6 — documentation
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- Reflection 5/3: - Unit 4 Part 2: - I need to stop thinking Im separate from white supremacy - My default assumption is that I exist above race (in some sense true due to my privilege), but i cant deny the existence of my privilege or the existence of oppressed racial and other identities - any work i do concerning race or power structures or oppression has to take into consideration my position, inherent bias/lack of understanding, and the effect my voice has on messages i proliferate - memes about whiteness coming from a white man is weird - i should fully acknowledge my privilege - reflection book could be a good place for that, since its the last project - visual language: embrace the gd white boy coding/ early web/postmodern/Cranbrook/“ugly” aesthetic, in order to bring my position and viewpoint to the forefront of my discourse, so it doesn’t get in the way later when i try to delve deeper into the social issues I’ve been trying to address(?) maybe thats all presumptuous bullshit - Tom O isn’t gonna like this hehe, i hope he uses me as a “bad” example for next semester ds4 - treat like a digital log/outline/notetaking format, which is how i record my thoughts anyway, and i dont have to pay attention to narrative structure or grammar/syntax yay! - its all part of the concept—“im so done with ds4” - i showed ishaan my design so far and he was like “that hurts my feeling,” i must be doing something right - i need to listen more - idk how - maybe i just need to chill - whats a responsible way to consume problematic media? (started watching Marvels netflix series iron fist, in which a super white goofy guy learns kung fu in another dimension and appropriates the hell out of a mish mash of east asian cultures
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- oh, and dont forget the main characters white savior complex! - i know whats wrong with the show, it doesn’t offend me at a deep level since i dont experience oppression, is that enough of a justification to watch it? its kind of fun and goofy otherwise and i like marvels other netflix series, maybe i should watch it illegally so the show doesn’t make any more money - (theres no ethical consumption under capitalism) - meh - maybe i could just read 800 or so pages of queer feminist theory instead
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Reflections
RISD GRAPH-3216 Design Studio 4 | General Course Syllabus SPRING-2017 Mondays 1:10–6:10 pm; Wednesdays 11:20–4:20 pm Faculty: James Goggin, Diane Lee, Thomas Ockerse, Benjamin Shaykin ____________________________________________________________________________________ Unit X: Reflection Attend to these three tasks: 1) Reflect regularly, and each week share at least one reflective note with your teacher (email, link, etc.); 2) Immediately after completing a Unit produce a reflective document about that unit, with written texts and visual examples; 3) For semester’s end produce a Reflective Process Book for the entire course (details to come). _____________________________________________________________ Unit X: Reflective Process Document: As we near the end of the course reflect on your DS1 experiences, your inquiries and work, course content and methods, and what you learned. Then develop a Reflective Process Document as a written and illustrated overview of and about your whole DS4 course experience. This must necessarily include your design process for each Unit. While NOT meant as a mere step-by-step “reporting” of your process (albeit inherent to include) DO THIS in a reflective manner: • to critically examine what you did and why, • to review and document ideation and the breadth and depth of directions, • to critically evaluate experiments and end results, • to speculate on what could improve these results. Describe your interests, criticisms, enthusiasm, relational views, and insights gained! Your daily/weekly “reflections” can weave into this. The “Reflective Process Document” Design: Design your document in an informationally practical manner, and sensitive to design principles for quality of layout, composition, type, legibility and user experience. There is no limit to the scope of this reflective document, but the more time you can give this REFLECTIVE task and its design the more you will benefit from it! Use InDesign, and provide your document as: • a “Packaged” folder (to include your InDesign file, fonts, and all images used). • a PDF of the final document (no crop marks etc.) as spreads. Due: Week 11, Wed May 10 Unit X: Draft review (while Unit 4 Continues) Week 12, Wed May 17 Unit X: FINAL due
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- Reflection 5/23: - Unit x: - damn. 100 pages in and im finally done! - i think the reflection document’s aesthetic can be summed up as “textbook ugly”, like actually ugly like a text book, drop shadows, 3d type, and all - the main reason for the ugliness is that i literally just wanted to try my hand at it, after feeling pressured to conform to other aesthetics and design languages for the entire semester. and its just fun! i never had an early-web phase, or an emo phase, so its like reliving late middle school - i think the itc tiffany header text is nice, and hearkens back to word art and old cassette tape art and whatnot - so, in summation, my concept was “cause i wanted to,” after being stuck in the gray area of doing what i did and didnt want to do for ds4 - thanks for a great semester Ben! - andddddd we’re back! risds at it again with their fucking problematic bullshit systemic anti-transness and black erasure with a lovely class entitled las-e515 transracial selves! - hooray! the prof wants to use transgenderism as a theoretical framework through which to view “transracialism” - lol nope - this is absurd, like, race and gender are both socially constructed but they’re not correlative! they have completely different historical implementations and understandings, and race as a white supremacist, colonialist hierarchy based on genetic physical characteristics provides zero agency to those who it oppresses—the only people who can be transracial are whites and poc who are white-passing—aka people who are already afforded some level of racial privilege by the system - we’ve got a fuckin rachel dolezal type as the professor too! - risd wild, its just too much - fucking claiming community and equitability and diversity by day, shitting on baad and funding racist classes by night - get out
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ds4 Unit x — Jacob Poindexter Spring 2017 Jacob Poindexter Design Studio 4 — Spring 2017 Unit x Benjamin Shaykin Graphic Design Rhode Island School of Design Set in itc Tiffany, Dear Sir Madam, and Gitan Latin Printed on 65 lb cover and 60lb text Lift-Off Lemon Neenah Astrobright with a laser printer