Codes for Fall 2009 ART 3080 and 3082 Sent

Just to let you know, I sent codes for the ART 3080 Advertising and ART 3082 Package Design classes via e-mail this morning. Be sure to check the e-mail account from which you usually get e-mail from me for the PDF.

Remember, If you are going to switch sections for some reason, you have to let me know. Don't use anyone else’s code or I'll drop you from the class and make you beg to get a new code. (There aren't many joys that come with the unpaid program coordinator position—I have to get my kicks somewhere!)

Hope your summer has been a good one so far.

Web Internship at D Magazine

D Magazine, the award winning city magazine of Dallas, is seeking a Web Design Intern. This is a PAID opportunity! If you have a passion for all things web, can crank out beautiful CSS and HTML, and have a strong eye for design (and a portfolio to back it up!), let’s talk.

You’ll work with the web team to design everything from email newsletters that reach thousands of subscribers, to mini-sites where we’ll leverage the latest design trends and techniques. Not to mention dabbling in everything from blogs, mobile sites and more. You’ll be a contributing member of the web team—much more than fetching coffee and washing cars!

Requirements:
-Strong design portfolio required
-CSS/HTML and cross-browser complaint markup skills required
-Will report to the Online Creative Director
-Work with our online edit, sales, and tech staff
-Guaranteed 40 hours per week summer hours, flexible post-summer
-This is a PAID internship
-Students or recent grads welcome

Location: Dallas
Hours per week Fall/Spring: 20
Hours per week Summer: 40
Citizenship: U.S. Citizen
Start Date: 6/1/09
Hourly Pay: $12/hr

For information on how to apply for this job, call Haley Briggs UNT Internships & Cooperative Education 940-565-2865

And the Nominees for the 2009 Outstanding Art Direction Portfolio Are…

Keyan Kenney


Shawn Hawkinson


Sean Leonard


Tim Elliot


John Graziano

And the Winner of the 2009 Outstanding Art Direction Portfolio Is John Graziano

This portfolio was selected for its breadth of design and concept. Great work.

But There Was a Tie! Sean Leonard Also Won the 2009 Outstanding Art Direction Portfolio

It's a tie! Sean Leonard also won for outstanding Art Direction. Sean's portfolio showed terrific work in design and concept. Congrats to you Sean. (His website is listed under Art Direction in the column on the right.)

InDesign Proficiency Exam Retake Scheduled

Hi all. I hope that you are taking a little time to rest and recharge your batteries!
I have now sent an e-mail to all of the students who passed the InDesign Proficiency Exam. If you have not received an e-mail from me, then you will need to retake this exam.

We have scheduled this retake time for Friday, June 5. There will be a morning session beginning at 9:00 am and and afternoon session beginning at 1:00 pm.

Sign up to retake the proficiency exam here by using the “Comment” function below to list the session you are wanting to sign up for.

The required skill set remains the same:

• Use the auto page number and brochure title on the left page of the master page for this document to create the running head and page number as it appears in this document.
• Employ fill with placeholder text and thread text boxes together from page 2 to 3 on bottom story.
• Match letter spacing type size, and weight where appropriate.
• Employ a baseline grid of 18 points and make sure all body copy is aligning to the baseline grid using that feature in the program.
• Employ custom color swatches from the photography to create the green in bulleted copy, and the blue type in sidebar with graphics.
• Employ the auto bullet feature to create bulleted copy and then use the glyph palette to replace a standard bullet with the square bullet.
• Tag all type appropriately, either paragraph or character. There shouldn’t be any type existing in the document that has not been tagged.
• Use paragraph rules, not graphics to create all rules below headline in bulleted copy and consulting fees on back page.
• Use the text wrap feature to wrap type around the photo on page 3.
• Employ optical alignment on for all text boxes.
• Indent body copy where appropriate, 2 picas using the indent feature for paragraphs.
• Employ a drop cap of 2 line lengths using the auto drop cap feature.
• Create a text box (on the back page) with rounded corners and type vertically centered with a 2 pica inset.
• Employ the use of tabs for the consulting fee copy on the back page.
• Pull guides out for alignments.
• Wrap type around large curved graphic on back page.
• Be able to package the file correctly in a new folder containing fonts, and links, and final InDesign document when completed.

If you did not make a C or better in the Typography I class but plan on returning to the program next Spring to retry that Type I course, I would suggest that you do not retake the InDesign test now. Demonstrating you have the necessary skills now and then not using those skills for over a year would ultimately be a waste of your time.

Good luck on the retake.

HOW Design Conference

June 24-27, 2009
Austin, Texas

The HOW Conference is the largest annual gathering of graphic designers in the U.S. The event features about 50 sessions (plus additional workshops) on the topics of creativity, career, business expertise, design inspiration and technology, and it’s geared toward students, agency designers, freelancers, interactive/digital designers, in-house creatives and other design professionals. Additional activities during the four-day event include a Portfolio Review for students and new professionals, opening and closing parties, a Resource Center featuring leading design-industry suppliers (stock up on your paper samples, photo catalogs and other swag) and, new in 2009: the Designers' Marketplace, featuring great handmade products created by designers.

We offer a terrific student rate (half off the regular registration), and lots of opportunities for students to network with working pros and to meet with speakers.

For more information and registration details, folks can go to http://www.howconference.com

Celebrate the 2009 Communication Design Alumni Event

Please join us as we celebrate Jack Sprague’s career and contributions at UNT, reflect upon the past, present and future of the Communication Design Program, the accomplishments of our alumni, the commencement of our recent grads, and the promise of our current students.

Saturday, May 16, 2009
At the Lakewood Theater,
1825 Abrams Rd., Dallas, TX 75214
6:00–8:30 p.m.

$22.00 per person for all alumni and guests.

Hot and cold hors d’oeuvres with a cash bar.

Participate in the silent auction of Jack Sprague’s photography and artwork to raise funds for the Jack Sprague Scholarship Fund (go to www.thesmartcentersantafe.com to view the photographs available for auction).

View the 2009 Senior Class Portfolios.
Bring a sample of your own design work to exhibit.

R.S.V.P. at comdes@unt.edu; pay at the door.

We can't wait to see you there!

Summer Book Arts Class

Instructor: Keith Owens
June 14-19, 2009
Endorphin Studio
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Interested in the book arts? You should be. It’s a skill that can set you apart as a designer, even in this highly digital world. Closer to home, students in our program are also required to create a bound professional portfolio their senior year. If you want to become a book arts wiz, consider taking my class this summer. Details are listed below.

In this week long class intensive, students will explore the techniques necessary to create a variety of book forms including sewn bindings, stab-stitch or Japanese binding, post binding, glued binding and project-based specialty bindings. Students will also learn techniques fundamental to any book arts project including: folding, gluing, corner treatments, forwarding, casing and finishing. Box building techniques will also be demonstrated.

For their class projects, students can choose to create a personal portfolio, bindings for existing book content or both, if time permits. The techniques students learn will enable them to tackle book arts projects they would normally find difficult if not impossible to complete with any level of success.
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Class hours will be 10:00 until 3:00 with 45 minutes for lunch.
The class will take place at Endorphin Studio 5800 North I35 Denton, Texas, Suite 309 in the Stonehill (Good Eats) Center. Endorphin Studio is a five-minute commute north from UNT (exit 470 on I35).

…………………………………………………….

To reserve your space (only 16 spots are available!) and learn about class costs, contact Keith Owens at kowens@unt.edu.

Summer Internship Opportunity at Launch Agency

Launch is offering a summer internship to undergraduate design and advertising students. This opportunity is for students who are going to be juniors or seniors the fall of '09 and who plan to pursue a career in the industry. The program runs from June 8- August 14, 2009.

If you are interested, please send samples of your no latter than May 8 to:

David Wilgus
Principal/Creative Director
dwilgus@launchagency.com

About Launch:
Launch is an independent, creatively led, brand-building agency in
Dallas. We are passionate about finding creative ways to connect with our client’s customers.

Please let me know if you are contacting David about this opportunity.

Eric

Experimental typography

Color amounts

Interactive Narrative on the Worldwide Web

ART 4813.501
Summer 1
Monday through Thursday, 8:30 am to 12:30 pm
Art Building, Room 313
Course Instructor: Michael Gibson

+ + + + + + + + + +

“Just as an iceberg lies largely hidden underwater, successful dynamic information design depends on strong, behind-the-scenes conceptual work. Without a tremendous amount of advance planning, dynamic interactive design can rapidly spin out of control and become dysfunctional…”

—Jan Kubasiewicz

Weeks One and Two:

Students will be challenged to construct a roughly functional, graphically simple/unembellished Flash-enhanced website that informs a specific audience/user group three to five different means for accomplishing a set task (for example, lose six pounds in 10 days, get your dog to stop barking at “every little thing” in the middle of the night, build a backyard fishpond, add additional “home made” instruments to your personal Rock Band array of instruments, color your own hair safely, catch and save the rainwater runoff from your house, build a modular, semi-portable quarter- or half-pipe for skateboarding, how to keep your best friend[s] from dating really stupid people, how to establish and maintain your own, do-it-yourself Ponzi scheme, etc.) Once students have developed personas for their “A-1 users” and then depicted/modeled their behavior in one or two directed storytelling sessions, an information architecture diagram will be created from which a simple, constructed-in-Dreamweaver+Flash “nuts-and-bolts version” of their site will be built. This project will culminate on Monday of Week Three.

Weeks Three, Four and Five:

Students will be given a choice of pursuing two different sets of narratively framed objectives:

A. Students will be challenged to use a variety of self-produced or found images and diagrams, text and video shorts to provide the content for a simple dynamic website that recounts three different versions of one event or incident from their own lives (i.e., three different accounts of one person’s less-usual-than-normal-behavior at X event by three very differently informed eyewitnesses), OR from history, OR from a hypothetical situation from at least three distinctly different points of view (“this is how X person would respond if confronted with X situation.”) Analyzing comments from Republican and Democratic spin-doctors after a presidential debate will be a good place to begin research on this, as will short texts such as “How to Win an Argument with a Liberal Democrat” and “ How to Win an Argument with a Conservative Republican.” The project will begin with a truncated information architecture and development phase, followed by two to three days of time devoted to content creation that supports the IA, followed by the design of a .css-based or Flash-underpinned website that facilitates the delivery of the different “slanted” re-tellings. Each recounting must reveal how and why the social, cultural, religious, economic or political beliefs of a given recounter/storyteller/reporter has affected his/her version of the event, its significance, and what can/should be learned from the event. This project will culminate on Thursday of Week Five (the last day of class).

B. Students will be challenged to use a variety of self-produced or found images and diagrams, text and video shorts to provide the content for an interactive taxonomy schema (I’m using this term very broadly… don’t be afraid to Google the terms “taxonomy” and “schema” if you need to...) that visually communicates what would happen if two components from different subcategories were force-connected/juxtaposed with each other as a means to create a new entity, new meaning, a new physical entity, or to achieve a specific objective. (This is the process that leads to lions and tigers being mated to produce “ligers,” how hand grenades replace the olive branch in doves’ mouths to create new interpretations of what some refer to as the “militarily enforced peace process,” how we can get a sense of what it be like if Angelina Jolie and Rush Limbaugh made a baby, etc.) This is also how a given audience can be sensitized to what happens when too many plastic water bottles don’t wind up in recycling bins, or too many people in north Dallas suburb X forget to turn their lawn sprinklers off for one or two nights during a given week in August. This piece must be created so that it can “live” on the worldwide web, and so that its text-based content can be managed by a .css-facilitated content management system and so that at least a portion of its navigation can be facilitated by Flash components that “live and work” atop the .html code that is facilitating the functionality of the rest of the site. This project will culminate on Thursday of Week Five (the last day of class).

Those of you who have forged working relationships with programmers in either Com Sci or in ITDS: please encourage select individuals from these areas to consider applying for admission into this course.

Logistics of Registration:

Preferential enrollment in this course will be given to students who possess the highest GPAs in communication design, ITDS, IS and Computer Science. Preferential enrollment will also be given to students who are closest to completing their undergraduate degree plans, but this should NOT discourage 2000- and soon-to-be 3000-level students from applying to register for this course, as there will likely be roster spots available to them.

Job Opportunity with Interstate Batteries

There is an immediate opening for a junior-level art director at Interstate Batteries in Dallas. The candidate must have approximately 2-years experience as a professional.

If you are interested, please contact me at ligon@unt.edu and I'll pass your name along.

If I learn any more about the job, I'll add that information.

The Art of Circus

Alumni Virgil Scott (’07) is part of Lonestar Letterpress Werks, a collective of design/letterpress printers who are staging this show featuring some "kick ass" work—all of which is for sale! The curtains go up Saturday, April 25 at 7:00 p.m., at Studio 204 (204 S. East Street in Arlingon, Texas).

Jason Perez Wins Best Public Sevice Advertising at the 2009 National Student Show

Jason Perez won the Best in Category Award for his "No Butts" advertising campaign at DSVC’s 2009 National Student Show. Great job, Jason.

And the Kudos Keep Rolling In!

I posted a month a ago that many of our students won medals at the American Advertising Federation-affiliated Dallas Ad League and Fort Worth Ad League Addy Competitions. The work that won gold medals in local competitions went on to compete in the AAF District 10 Addy Competition (Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma).

The work that wins Gold in the regional-level competitions goes forward to compete in the National Addy Competition. Good Luck!

And the news is in:

PACKAGING
Student Silver
Stu Taylor for Purina Dog Science

Student Gold
Stu Taylor Tide Essentials

MAGAZINE AD CAMPAIGN
Student Gold
John Graziano Garmin GPS

IDENTITY DESIGN
Student Gold
Alicia Espinosa Library Hotel Logo

We are very proud of these students and their work. (If you scroll down you'll find examples of this work in the blog.) Congratulations!

Stu Taylor Wins Dick Sloan Portfolio Award at 2009 National Student Show

Stu Taylor (Comm Design junior) won the Dick Sloan Portfolio Award this year at the DSVC 2009 National Student Show and Conference. This is a prestigious award for Stu and for the program. Congrats to you, Stu!

Pictured above are Stu with Dick Sloan’s family.

Zach Hale Wins National Student Show Best Illustration

Zach Hale won Best in Category at the DSVC 2009 National Student Show for his illustration, Miami Frank. Great job, Zach!

Stephen Menton Writes His Way to Fame and Fortune

Stephen Menton, (a junior Comm design major) just won UNT’s annual university-wide writing competition in the category of undergraduate prose (this honor comes with a $500 prize). This is a really big deal—Stephen beat out a boatload of people who are majoring in writing in areas such as Lit, Journalism, Tech Writing and English. Stephen is also a TAMS Scholar. Congrats, Stephen!

UNT Student Mark Travis Wins Dallas Ad League Scholarship

Mark Travis (a CommDesign junior) was recently named the recipient of the Sam Bloom Memorial Scholarship (a $2,000 award). The Ad League told Mark that they were very impressed with the work coming out of the CVAD Communication Design program. As are we.
Congratulations, Mark.

UNT Makes Graphis New Talent Annual 2009

Christopher King (’08) and Ryan Bailey (current senior) were published in the Graphis New Talent Annual 2009. The annual has been out since January, but I just found out today. Chris created the book cover for Cry to Heaven. Ryan designed the poster Share the Health. Congratulations. You make us proud!

Collaborative Innovation — Summer 5-Week Session I

CDES: Design Studio — Collaborative Innovation
Summer Session 5-Week I
ADES 4540-501
June 8–July 3
Monday–Friday
8:30 AM–1:30 PM

Description:
In this four-week long course open to upper level undergraduate and graduate students, interdisciplinary teams will identify and solve a problem a problem presented by a non-profit organization that will ultimately manifest itself in a visual (or non-visual) expression of one form or another. Emphasis will be placed on conceptual problem solving, exploration of multiple hypotheses, creative teamwork, and the development of innovative solutions.

Students will explore and utilize a variety of processes and visual techniques that inform and guide ideation as a means to create a common language that will allow them to communicate effectively across disciplinary backgrounds. The knowledge they gain from these experiences will allow them to develop and actualize the kinds of visual solutions necessary for future programmatic and career-based success.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the class, students should be able to
1. Students will study ideational/conceptual sketching techniques and develop a common visual language of symbols from which to develop quick visual.
2. Students will work in interdisciplinary teams in order to learn and understand other methods of empathetic research, problem solving, strategic thinking and innovative planning.
3. Identify various problems in need of new solutions. The problems may be social, economic, cultural or market-based problems.
4. Identify and meet new user and business needs by designing instruments, solutions and/or communications that allow constituents from all involved groups to contribute to at least some aspects of the design decision-making process.

Student Teams:
It is my goal to create three creative teams made up of students from the following disciplines. These three teams will work collaboratively to develop their own solutions to the problem creative problem.
1. Communication Design—Graphic Design, Art Direction, Web Design
2. Interior Design
3. Fashion Design
4. Marketing
5. Anthropology
6. Radio / TV/ Film
7. And possibly Art Education depending on the client

If you are interested in the Collaborative Innovation class, send me an email by Friday, April 17 at eric.ligon@unt.edu with your:
• First and last name
• Year and program in which you are enrolled

Welcome to the Family, Eleanor!

Emily ('07) and Jeff Charette ('07) are the proud parents of a sweet beautiful baby girl named Eleanor Grace.
Here are Eleanor's stats:

8lbs, 9oz
20.5 in
Born April 3 @ 3:38 pm (5 days after estimated due date), after weeks of early labor, 3 hours of hard labor, and 40 minutes of pushing. 100% drug free & natural! Emily says she couldn't have asked for more!

Time, motion, information—Summer 5-Week Session II

Time, motion, information
ART 4813-502 >> Computer Art Studio >> Summer Session II >>Jul 13–Aug 14 >> Monday–Thursday >> 8:30AM–12:30PM

Description:
The main focus of this class will be information and users in the online/ interactive environments. Think moving typography. Think moving images. Think beautiful form. Think meaningful form. Think complex information. Think complex information management online. Think users. But most importantly think fun experimentation.

In this class, the ability to think interactively will be reinforced over the ability to code.

This class will not be about teaching the ins and outs of actionscripting in Flash. It will be introducing you to the basic capabilities of the software (Flash and/or After Effects) which will be highly sufficient as you design and conceptualize ways to display information online.

The online environment presents different challenges than the printed page. This class will encourage you to think interactively as you find new and exciting ways to explain complex processes and manage information online. You will be rethinking and reinforcing the use of design principles and strategies, used in the printed world, online.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the class, students should be able to
1. Think conceptually in the online/interactive world—ability to understand how information has the potential to behave differently in the online versus the offline world
2. Understand the affordances of the online/interactive world
3. Manage (present/design/chart) complex information—text and/or images—in the online/interactive world, through the use of time, sound and motion
4. Design conditions for information that informs users
5. Design conditions for meaningful user experiences
6. Create beautiful yet functional form in the interactive world
7. Create basic interactive pieces in Flash and/or After Effects

Some examples of potential/hopeful outcomes from this class:
http://twistori.com/
http://vimeo.com/3261363?pg=embed&sec=
http://smas.studioludens.com/
http://www.dubberly.com/concept-maps (interactive version of this?)
http://brianholmes.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/swfs.gif (interactive version of this?)
http://well-formed.eigenfactor.org/treemap.html
http://well-formed.eigenfactor.org/radial.html
http://www.ownyourc.com/

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Designer, Justin Gier, from The Media Design Program at Art Center, Pasadena, will be joining us for a one week workshop. He will bring his expertise in interaction design and technology to the classroom and together we will be assigning a new project around the theme of interactive information design and users.

Justin Gier's REWIRE: Interaction Topologies will be on exhibit at the Nordic Design Research Conference in Oslo, Norway in August 2009. In 2007, he led a team of graduate students at Art Center College of Design working on a design research initiative with Adobe and the AIGA called Designer of 2015. Justin also worked with designers and art directors to present deliverables for clients such as HP, British Petroleum, Coors, and Tropicana at Landor and Associates in San Francisco.

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If you are interested in the "Time, Motion, Information" class, send me an email at michele.wong@unt.edu with your:
• First and last name
• Year in the program
• Brief description of your knowledge of flash and/or After effects (this will be helpful to the planning of assignments and any required tutorials)

• Day when you are planning on bringing donuts and bagels to class

- MWKF