Heather Shaw
Assistant Professor, Graphic Design
Curry College
hshaw0609@curry.edu
heathershawdesign.com
Sarah Smith
Instructional Technologist
ssmith0707@curry.edu
almyraonline.com/blog
enCode / deCode / reCode
Intro. to Interactive Media Workshop
Monday July 19 — Friday July 23 2010
Prepared for the Higher Education Press (HEP) Beijing, China
Workshop description
What can “Die Neue Typographie” (Jan Tschichold, 1928) teach us about designing for various media today? How can systematic principles for design, layout, and rules-based thinking—apply to screen-based and interactive media today? Workshop participants will be assigned a master work by Jan Tschichold, and re-interpret the piece for screen, print, and interactivity. Through lecture, tutorials, and in-class exercises, this fast-paced workshop focuses on teaching the basics of CSS / XHTML mark-up language, folded book constructions, and interactive prototyping.
Part One: enCODE
Participants will visually analyze a selected work from Jan Tschichold, and then reinterpret, or “encode” this work into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and XHTML for the web, creating as close a visual representation to the original printed counterpart, using only code.
Part Two: deCODE
Participants then “decode” the original experience for content, meaning, and history, and conceptualize an expressive typographic folding construction. The process of working through the CSS and XHTML mark-up language become a conceptual springboard as inspiration for the design.
This portion of the workshop is team-based and fast-paced—involving group brainstorming sessions, conceptual development, and the design of a folded book construction in two days.
Part Three: reCODE
Participants reinterpret the folding book constructions to create a motion-based and/or interactive prototype. The books are analogue constructions for exploring concepts related to motion, behaviors, and user interaction. This portion of the workshop is also team-based—involving the development and design of a sketch prototype in two days.
Objectives
This workshop introduces formal relationships of rules and structure via an underlying set of CSS and XHTML mark-up, anchored within a historical context. This process enables participants to develop sensibility and sensitivity to form and communication for screen, print, and interactivity. This workshop is derived from an assignment used for teaching web design standards, non-traditional book design, and interactivity to undergraduate graphic design students.