Focused on individual projects and active learning, web authoring covers software, code, writing, graphics, and user-friendly design for websites. Students spend the semester developing an original project – e.g., an online portfolio, a web comic, or a research project.

We start by investigating possible site topics and designs while learning to build web pages with XHTML and CSS and to create and manipulate web graphics with Photoshop.

Students then develop their projects through regular draft assignments that cover standard web genres (e.g., book review, image gallery, feedback questions, and recommended links) and features of a web page (e.g., layout, graphics, and navigation).

As part of the writing and design process, we look critically at a wide range of web and print examples, from the formal innovation of early 20th magazine layouts to the fluid brightness of the latest Web 2.0 interactivity.

Later in the semester we look at ways to animate elements of the website with Javascript and Flash Professional. Other standards, techniques, and software that may be covered included PHP, microformats, tag clouds, Dreamweaver, and Spry.

No prior technical knowledge is required for this course.

Want more information? Take a look at the 425 Fall 2008 website.

Information design is the practice of gathering, filtering, and presenting information in accordance with effective design principles in order to understand and communicate to others the essence of that information.

Information design uses page layout, typography, graphics, and document organization, along with audience analysis and good writing, to help people get where they are going, do what they need to do, and learn what they need to learn – in a precise and aesthetically pleasing way.

This course will introduce you to the essentials of the field, giving you practice in fundamental design techniques and computer applications like Adobe InDesign and Illustrator.

Over the semester you'll design an impressive portfolio of work. Common projects include a typographical poster, an illustrated biography, a magazine spread, an educational comic-book, and package and instruction re-designs for a DVD or computer game. Projects combine individual and collaborative work and plenty of hands-on practice.

Learn critical design and computer skills that will serve you well in a wide range of creative and professional fields – from fashion and graphic design to publishing, journalism, business, and the sciences.

Want more information? Take a look at the 415 Spring 2008 website.

Composing graphic narratives is an advanced writing workshop devoted to producing both fiction and non-fiction through comics and other forms of text-image communication.

The class explores ways to share information, construct arguments, and tell stories through the medium of graphic narrative. The course approaches graphic narrative as a flexible form of writing that uses images, text, narrative structure, and page design as active parts of its "language."

Assignments will cover storytelling and the conventions of graphic narrative technique. We will also learn to combine these conventions with the traditional lexicon of explanatory and instructional graphics, such as arrows, node diagrams, numerical notation, and spark lines. Working both individually and collaboratively, students will produce several short narratives and two longer narratives (for the midterm and final projects).

We'll study a range of examples, including recent works by Chris Ware, Eddie Campbell, Alan Moore, Alison Bechdel, and Marjane Satrapi, and classic comics by George Herriman and Elzie Segar. We'll supplement our creative work and class discussion with criticism and theoretical readings from Scott McCloud, Edward Tufte, Roland Barthes, and Henry Jenkins (among others).

Students will use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and InDesign as well as with a range of online graphics and design resources. No prior technical knowledge or drawing experience is required for this course. As part of the course, we'll experiment with alternatives to traditional line drawing, including clip art, collage, Situationist-style "détournement," and digital photography.

Want more information? Take a look at the 402 Fall 2008 website.