Assignments

1. Revision of Ad

Assigned: September 9
Due with commentary: September 30

Find a newspaper or magazine advertisement that you think would benefit from redesigning. As a way of beginning to learn some of our software, try to create this redesign in PageMaker, using a scanner and Photoshop to capture and manipulate images from the original. While staying within the parameters of the original ad (size, media, costs), your redesign should improve the ad not only visually, but rhetorically in how it implies images of its audience (pathos) and the advertiser (ethos). More…

2. Bookmark/Web Site

Assigned: September 16
Due with commentary: October 7

Campus is covered with flyers given out from offices and display tables, or posters that line the hallways. These documents earnestly provide information about programs, clubs, happenings, products, etc., but utlimately they're just paper paper paper--to be filed, tucked, folded, stacked, and, someday, thrown away. They say too much and, at the same time, too little. What to do?

Adopt one of these unloved flyers/posters and approach its task with a new strategy. Create an attractive bookmark that publicizes what the flyer/poster once offered, and provides a Web address. Then create a companion Web page (or site) for that Web address where complete and up-to-date information can be found. Use design elements on both the bookmark and Web page(s) to give the whole project a coherent look and feel. More...

3. Lake Walk University

Assigned: October 7
Due with commentary: November 4

In this project, you'll create a tri-fold brochure (on a single 8.5 x 11 page, front and back), which will enable the reader to take a self-directed tour of sites and objects on the Lake Walk. Since a university's mission is to produce and disseminate knowledge, your brochure should use the Lake Walk to teach some introductory "lesson" in a university discipline or field of your choosing—ideally, your own major.

You will also do a usability test of a draft version of this project by asking a friend or classmate actually to take the tour. More...

4. New Media Writing

Assigned: October 21
Due with commentary: November 25

This project will ask you to begin a new media project by working in an old medium--writing. You will write an argument, narrative or explanation in a three-to-five page "paper." Then you'll repurpose and "remediate" that material to create a Web site that fulfills the same purposes except in a digital environment. More...

5. Client Project

Assigned: September 30
proposal due: November 11
copies of the proposal and BETA versions due for everyone in class: December 2
final version due: December 16

You will create a document project for a real-life client on campus or in the local area. More...

6. Analytical Paper: "scrolling forward in your career and life"

Assigned: September 23
Due: December 16

Write an eight-to-twelve-page essay in which you engage a particular question or issue raised by Levy in Scrolling Forward by recounting in detail an experience with the class projects this semester and/or an experience you've had with creating documents. Then, project your analysis/experience forward to the possibilities of creative practice in your intended field of work (or perhaps in a political, civic or cultural endeavor that you will be involved with). More...