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From September 3 to December 11, 2019, this course focused on interaction design and publishing in the form of conceptual online projects for 14 students.

Note: these summaries are written at the end of each semester by Mindy Seu. Different sections of this class were taught by Nika Fisher and Jacob Rivkin. This class had three multi-week projects and five day-long exercises. Projects included: (1) Exhibition about Design Futures in conjunction with the Rutgers BFA opening show. For this, students had the option to make a video using AfterEffects or website with HTML/CSS. (2) Subcultural Publication asked students to research a subculture and create an online publication about their chosen niche. (3) Social Web asked students to think critically about social media and imagine what new online social interactions could be if platforms were for specific communities. Exercises included: (1) Type in Motion with an introduction to AfterEffects, (2) Desktop Portraits, (3) drawing with HTML and CSS in Coding from Life (seen below), (4) :hover which explore rollovers and (5) Responsiveness which introduced Flexbox and Media Queries.

Fieldtrips & Visitors

Guest lecturers and critics included Shiraz Gallab (designer and writer), Francesca Gianetti (Rutgers Digital Humanities Librarian), Sal Hamerman (librarian, Princeton and Cybernetics Library), Foreign Objects (Agnes Cameron, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Kalli Retzepi, Sam Ghantous), and Megan Lotts (Rutgers Fine Arts Librarian) with support from Greyory Blake (Rutgers Design Technician).

shiraz

During W5, we went on a fieldtrip to the Fine Arts Library led by librarian Megan Lotts. W6 and the start of P2 began with a field trip to Office Space 2. Sal Hamerman showed us a selection of printed ephemera. (photos by Jael Bae)

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To kick-off P3, New York-based art collective Foreign Objects led a bots workshop.

fo-workshop

P1: Exhibition about design futures

Jael Bae, click me!

jael-click-me

Jillian Mulhern, google maps

jillian-mulhern-google-maps

Danielle Farah, instructions

danielle-farah-instructions

P2: Subcultural Publication

Sheila Leonard, steampunk

sheila-steampunk

Jillian Mulhern, Two Sides

jillian-mulhern-two-sides

Jael Bae, Two Sides

jael-bae-suicide

P3: Social Web

Sherry Mi, hush hush

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Grace Taylor, germy

grace-taylor-germy

Gilbert Espinoza, hug

gilbert-espinoza-hug

Exercises

Coding from Life asked students to code still life drawings using HTML and CSS. All of the drawings can be seen here, and the one below is by student Grace Taylor. This workshop was originally created by Laurel Schwulst and has been adapted by many others.

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Personal Note

This was my first course taught in the Rutgers BFA program! The biggest hurdle was getting used to a weekly six-hour studio, rather than biweekly three-hour studios. Penn Station is terrible, but I really enjoyed the train ride.