Welcome to COMD1100: Graphic Design Principles 1, part of your First Year Learning Community, Ways of Seeing: Adventures with Image & Text.

Course Overview (1/2 hour)

Learning Community

Ways of Seeing: Adventures with Image & Text
This course, part of a First Year Learning Community for COMD students taking COMD1100 & ENG1101, will include field trips, hands-on projects, multimedia composing, and cross-sensory experiences to help you discover, express, and refine your creative vision.

First Year Learning Communities (FYLC) at City Tech are two or more courses with the same students enrolled, linked with an interdisciplinary theme, providing an innovative way for students to learn and form bonds with the college. FYLC faculty work together and with peer mentors to highlight connections between disciplines, in addition to creating a more caring, consistent, and supportive environment.

COMD1100: Graphic Design Principles 1

This design and color theory course explores graphic communication through the understanding of the elements and principles of design, as well as the design process, from idea development through final execution.

Review of Course Documents

Introductions (1 hour)

Introducing ourselves

It was great to learn about all your overlapping interests and activities in your comments on the Ways of Seeing site.

Calendar Activity

Let’s do an activity to graphically represent our day-to-day lives. It will give us a window into how we organize our academic, personal, and creative commitments. And also show us how the visual the representation of our days compares to others.

  1. On first of the two calendar handouts provided, fill in every part of your weekly schedule. Include every 1/2 hour of your day! Include all the scheduled times when you are asleep, in class, on the subway, eating dinner with family, etc. If you have flexible times when you hang out with friends, play video games, study, draw, exercise, add those in too. Add 2-4 hours in your week to complete your homework for this class.
  2. Using your first calendar as a guide, use a pencil to heavily shade your scheduled times on the second calendar. Use stripes or light shading for flexible times. And lastly leave your free time blank.
  3. Put your name on your second calendar and hang it up on the board!

Things to observe

  • Is there anyone else who has a similar graphic calendar?
  • When all the schedules are hanging up together, what does it make you think about?
  • How does it feel to see a week of your life represented in this way?

Sidenote

Break & Getting on OpenLab (15 min)

Become a member of our OpenLab course!

  1. Follow these instructions if you don’t have access to your City Tech email.
    NOTE: You need be able to access your City Tech email before signing up for OpenLab.
    Check this page for instructions for City Tech email access or contact Help Desk at 718-260-4900 or studenthelpdesk@citytech.cuny.edu, or visit the Help Desk on the first floor of the Atrium Building.
  2. Create an OpenLab account and/or sign in.
  3. Join our OpenLab Course:

Visual Inspiration Walk (15 min)

  1. At the end of class we will walk from the classroom to the art supply store, taking a circuitous route and arriving at our destination in about 15 minutes.
  2. Along the way look for things that inspire you. These can be objects, signs, scenes, people, colors, light, shapes, anything!
  3. Take a well-composed photograph of each inspiration.
  4. If you can’t find anything that inspires you, keep trying! 🙂

Homework

  1. Become a member of our OpenLab course!
  2. Create your first Visual Library post using the photographs from our walk or something else that inspires you.
  3. Review Course Documents. And contact me with any questions.

Materials needed for NEXT CLASS

** Note: if you are unable to purchase these items due to financial aid delays, please contact me BEFORE the next class.