// Concepts in Motion

In this advanced course, students create solutions for time-based interactive design problems.  Key attention is paid to understanding how form communicates function, how motion and interactivity can enhance the human experience , learning how to construct navigational pathways, and flow.

This class is a primer for your final Senior Thesis course (Art 4751) and as such it is geared towards a studio/seminar approach. The goal of the first half of the semester is to explore smaller problems that present tools for creating projects in bite size pieces. Learning is organized around cumulative goals and objectives. By midterm, projects will expand to more complex problems that are multi-dimensional and interactive in nature. In some cases students may be involved in developing total solutions for designed media products. Conceptual development, conceptual articulation to visual form, visual and textual research, production, and visual and verbal  presentation skills and writing skills are all essential to this course. A journal (digital or otherwise) will be a requirement for the course or for a specific project.

Goals

Derive an approach to common challenges of creating and designing interactive media.

  • Prototyping/Storyboarding
  • Flowcharting
  • Pre-production
  • Production

Achieve intermediate competency in media derivation tools and techniques for animation, sound and scripted interactivity; master the lexicon of terms surrounding digitally-based media.

Objectives

  • To use time, form, motion and narrative to successfully communicate in a simple interactive experience
  • To develop a broad-based awareness and understanding of the language of motion and interactivity
  • To derive an approach to common information-display problems

Course Wiki

Share code and resources, create pages, and author content on the course wiki

Books & Articles on Reserve

  • The Film Sense, Sergei Eisenstein
  • Computers as Theatre, Brenda Laurel
  • Information Anxiety, Richard Saul Wurman
  • The Essentials of Interaction Design, Alan Cooper & Robert Reimann
  • Information Design, Robert Jacobson, ed.
  • The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, Brenda Laurel, ed.
  • Designing Interfaces, Jenifer Tidwell
  • Information Dashboard Design, Stephen Few

Required Text:

Designing Interfaces
by Jenifer Tidwell
ISBN 0-596-00803-1 

Macromedia Flash CS3 for Windows and Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)
by Katherine Ulrich, 2007.
ISBN-10: 0-321-50291-4  (yellow & orange cover)

Additional Texts:

Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8
By Kristian Besley, Sham Bhangal, Eric Dolecki, David Powers
ISBN: 1590596188

Recommended Texts

The following books are not required, but you may wish to consume/acquire them to enhance your conceptual skills and/or technical abilities in design.

The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst
(October 9, 2004)
Hartley & Marks, Publishers
ISBN: 0961454733

Art and Fear, by David Bayles & Ted Orland
(April 2001)
Consortium Book Sales & Dist
ISBN: 0961454733

Grid Systems in Graphic Design, Joseph Muller-Brockmann
(1996)
Arthur Niggli; Bilingual edition
ISBN: 3721201450

Prerequisites

Foundation program prerequisites are mandatory as are Art 3265 Narrative Design with a grade of “C” or better. Students must possess a comprehensive working knowledge of  InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and other software deemed appropriate for project development.  Any new media software knowledge is advantageous.  Students not meeting these prerequisites should attempt this course at a later date.