As Far As I Can Tell

Today was the second day of the second half of my first semester of the first year of graduate school. All of that adds up to being roughly 1/8 done even though it seems like I just started. Mid-term projects piled up at the end and caused two back to back all-nighters but at least everything got done. I find I can stay awake all night without a problem; it’s the next day that gets me.

I realize I haven’t written much here about school so I thought I’d at least list out what classes I’m in and hopefully go more in depth later. Eventually I’ll have a portfolio of schoolwork online, maybe integrated into currentform or maybe its own thing. I’m taking:

Graduate Seminar I — Human Experience and Interaction Design: Concepts, Methods, and Products
So far this has focused on in-depth readings on the varying theories of interaction present in our world. The readings range from cognitive scientist Herbert Simon to Plato, intermixed with movies as diverse as Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and The Matrix. This class is rough at times and it’s hard to make some of the connections we’re striving for but I’m enjoying it. Never in my education have I had such an exhaustive look at design from such a high view point.

Graduate Studio I
This class is split between two different professors, so we just swapped. The first half was focused on information design and the second looks like it might be typography. Back to some fundamentals for a bit.

Introduction to Interaction and Visual Interface Design
Focused much more on “real world” projects this class is getting into some of the core methods of design and research that I need to know. I suppose you could say that this class is most closely aligned with what I might potentially be doing when I get out of school. So far I’ve been on teams designing a cell phone based movie-finder application and a recipe website for aspiring cooks. This is a core class to my major.

The Interactive Image
This elective from the art department taught by Golan Levin is “an introduction to the use of interactive graphics as an expressive visual tool.” Or put another way a “studio art course in computer science.” We’ve been learning the programming language Processing, a flavor of Java created for artists and designers. I’ve been programming with simple languages for years but this class has introduced me to things not possible in environments like Flash. This second half of the semester will be focused on our final project and I’m still formulating ideas. You can see some of my basic programming exercises on the class website (java required).

Communication Design Fundamentals
This is the class I teach twice a week. The students are all non-design majors from different backgrounds and at different levels in the university. The projects focus on basic form and layout, typography, grids, and color. It’s sometimes hard to have this on top of all my other classes but I’m enjoying it.

So that’s what occupies my time every day, all day. Once I’ve finished the semester I hope to elaborate more. Plus then I can reflect on what I got out of the class and point you towards some finished projects.