Martha Chiplis

This research, discussion, and critique course develops a visual and verbal vocabulary by examining relationships between form and content, word and image. Study includes symbolic association and the problem of effective communication in a highly complex culture.

This studio course explores typography's impact on language to create meaning, organization and tone. Students experiment in typographic composition and page structure with special regard to the flow and rupture of different text types and reading scenarios. Students learn the technical aspects of typography (specification and copyfitting), methods for composing dynamic multipage formats (combining digital and analog), and contexts (both historical and structural) for understanding the vast repository of typefaces. This course is a core requirement for the Visual Communication Design portfolio review.

The framing text for this class is Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type. But students will be introduced to numerous examples from the history of (predominantly Western) letterforms and concretized language. Understanding these historical forms in their contexts will reveal the logic behind the modern classification of digital type.

Students produce weekly type projects which are critiqued and handed in as three project sets. The first set analyses letterforms, structurally and then programmatically. The next project set covers text setting and typographic compositions of increasing semantic and syntactic complexity. The last project is a multilingual, illustrated book layout where students engage the fundamental concept of 'structured variety' over a series of pages.

This studio course explores typography's impact on language to create meaning, organization and tone. Students experiment in typographic composition and page structure with special regard to the flow and rupture of different text types and reading scenarios. Students learn the technical aspects of typography (specification and copyfitting), methods for composing dynamic multipage formats (combining digital and analog), and contexts (both historical and structural) for understanding the vast repository of typefaces. This course is a core requirement for the Visual Communication Design portfolio review.

The framing text for this class is Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type. But students will be introduced to numerous examples from the history of (predominantly Western) letterforms and concretized language. Understanding these historical forms in their contexts will reveal the logic behind the modern classification of digital type.

Students produce weekly type projects which are critiqued and handed in as three project sets. The first set analyses letterforms, structurally and then programmatically. The next project set covers text setting and typographic compositions of increasing semantic and syntactic complexity. The last project is a multilingual, illustrated book layout where students engage the fundamental concept of 'structured variety' over a series of pages.

The poster (broadside) has a rich heritage in culture, design, and art. Some of the forms that will be explored in this course are political and social justice posters, advertising window cards, public notices, music posters, magician?s joke cards, and the work of contemporary letterpress printers.

Students will be exposed to the history, layout structures, and graphic vocabularies of the poster format via lectures, handouts, video documentaries, and visits to local collections such as the Newberry Library. Through instructor demonstrations and student practice in the well-equipped SAIC letterpress studio, students will explore the relationship between form and content in design, become familiar with the names and parts of type, learn how to set type correctly, how to print well, and more.

Students will develop their own contemporary interpretations of the poster form by writing, designing, revising, and printing broadsides via letterpress. A convergence of old and new technologies?wood and metal type, relief matrices, and the reproductive capabilities of digitally-based photopolymer?will be used.