ur class will meet every Monday and Wednesday from 12:45 until 2:45 in room 003 of Franklin Hall. You should expect to spend two full hours with the class for every session. Our sessions will include numerous tutorials and creative exercises to further your design abilities. Tutorials will be accompanied by handouts (and many videos, recorded for the asynchronous, Summer version of this class, are available). Most classes will feature a lecture, and all will involve you working to build skills in the necessary software or in producing some form of creative work.
We will conclude each unit with a short quiz. These you will take on Canvas and outside class, and they will be due at 11:59PM on the day they are assigned. The quizzes will stay open for a time after this deadline — either until 11:59PM on Friday for quizzes on Wednesday, or until classtime on Wednesday for quizzes on Monday — but there will be a late penalty for quizzes submitted after deadline. Do be sure to let me know if you cannot complete the quiz before the deadline, however, and I will not charge you this penalty. But once a quiz closes, it will be closed for good. We will usually review the quiz questions and answers in the following lecture.
Attendance
Every class is important to your learning and mastering skills, and your attendance is mandatory.
You may miss three class sessions this semester without penalty. Thereafter, each unexcused absence will lower your final average by one point. If you miss both sessions during a week, you may still submit Participation work, but only for half credit.
Please be aware, however, that excused absences will not count against your attendance record. If you are absent because of any of the following reasons, I will excuse your attendance — as long as you provide documented evidence:
- Religious holidays
- Personal illness
- A death in your immediate family
- Attendance at an extracurricular event sanctioned by IU. That is, if you are competing on an IU sports team, attending an academic conference or covering an event for student media, your absence will be excused.
Typically, documentation would include a note from a physician, an instructor or coach, or an obituary of the deceased family member. For religious observance-related absences, please use the Request for Accommodation for Religious Observances.
Deadlines
Deadlines are the lifeblood of media practice, and blowing deadlines in our business is simply not tolerated. I am, however, aware that university life sometimes places additional pressures on students, and that it is not inconceivable that some assignments, once in great while, may have to be handed in late. If this should happen to you, and I hope it doesn’t, I will accept late projcts for the first five calendar days after deadline. I will take off 10 percent per day, though, so it’s in your interest to be on time. (An exception to this is the final project, which is due during finals week and cannot be turned in late.) If you are having problems meeting a project deadline, please let me know ahead of time.
Our quizzes will be taken on the last day of each unit. We will take quizzes on Canvas, on the same day as class sessions, with a deadline of 11:59PM. If you cannot take a quiz but have an excused absence — serious illness, religious holiday, death in the family or your attendance of an IU-sanctioned event — you can make it up at a later date. You must have written documentation for your absence.
Participation tutorials and exercises will feature heavily throughout the semester so you can build the necessary skills and practice design thinking and execution in preparation for project work. You can turn in these assignments for half credit if you miss a deadline, but I would encourage you to stay on top of these assignments. (Please note that occasionally, depending on our in-class progress, a Participation deadline may be slightly extended.)
Academic integrity
Design is almost always a collaborative process, and I encourage you to seek the advice and input of others — classmates, friends, etc. — along the way. But in this class, all the graphic design material — anything drawn or rendered, any piece of design work — must be 100 percent your own. While I hope you will find influence in many areas, please understand that stealing another person’s ideas or artwork is wrong, it can get you fired in the real world and will not be accepted in this class. This extends to the proper use of imagery as well. During class, we will go through ways in which you can obtain copyright- and royalty-free images to use within a design. Drawing from photographic resources is acceptable, but tracing or otherwise appropriating an existing illustration is not.
The rise of AI has clouded many students’ understandings of what constitutes original work. While generative AI has become a feature in apps like Illustrator or Photoshop, it is often a shortcut to actual creative practice, and the use of AI in our class will be severely limited. You are in this class to become more proficient as a designer, and you cannot learn this by using such shortcuts. This philosophy extends to the use of pre-existing illustrative elements — easily available in a Google search or as a download from libraries like Adobe Stock — in your work, and to the modeling of your work on previously existing designs. Please see me if you have any questions about what is acceptable as we progress, but please be aware that I will consider infractions covering any of the above misuses of design content to be academic misconduct.
Academic misconduct is defined as any activity that tends to undermine the academic integrity of the institution. Violations include: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, interference, violation of course rules and facilitating academic dishonesty. When you submit an assignment with your name on it, you are signifying that the work contained therein is yours, unless otherwise cited or referenced. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged. All suspected violations of the Code will be reported to the Dean of Students and handled according to University policies. Sanctions for academic misconduct may include a failing grade on the assignment, reduction in your final course grade, and a failing grade in the course, among other possibilities. If you are unsure about the expectations for completing an assignment, be sure to seek clarification beforehand.
In the classroom
We will endeavor to promote a comfortable, creative atmosphere at all times this semester. But please conduct yourself with professionalism while you are in class — it’s good practice! Class will begin on time at 12:45 sharply ... if you must arrive late, please slip in quietly. We will usually have a short break roughly halfway through every session; please remain in the class otherwise, unless it’s an absolute emergency.
Use of personal devices is not allowed during lectures, and I expect to have your full focus throughout the two hours of each session. And while I understand the temptation, please avoid working on anything unrelated to our class during our class time.
Sexual misconduct
As your instructor, one of my responsibilities is to create a positive learning environment for all students. Title IX and IU’s Sexual Misconduct Policy prohibit sexual misconduct in any form, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, stalking, and dating and domestic violence. If you have experienced sexual misconduct, or know someone who has, the University can help.
If you are seeking help and would like to speak to someone confidentially, you can make an appointment with:
- The Sexual Assault Crisis Services (SACS) at (812) 855-8900 (counseling services)
- Confidential Victim Advocates (CVA) at (812) 856-2469 (advocacy/advice services)
- IU Health Center at (812) 855-4011 (health and medical services)
It is also important that you know that Title IX and University policy require me to share any information brought to my attention about potential sexual misconduct, with the campus Deputy Title IX Coordinator or IU’s Title IX Coordinator. In that event, those individuals will work to ensure that appropriate measures are taken and resources are made available. Protecting student privacy is of utmost concern, and information will only be shared with those that need to know to ensure the University can respond and assist.
I encourage you to visit stopsexualviolence.iu.edu to learn more.
Materials
There is nothing you will need to buy for this course — though I would recommend you have at hand a sketchbook and some quality pencils. Because we will be learning to draw in Illustrator later in the semester, you might consider a good mouse for your own computer, but this is not required either. There is no textbook for this class, though there will be a couple of short readings available as PDFs on Canvas. And I'm happy to recommend actual books if you are a book-reading sort of person.
This syllabus
I have mapped out what I believe to be an achievable schedule for this course that will keep everybody working at a steady and challenging pace. Because there are wide variations in your experiences coming in and because we will cover a lot of ground in this class, I reserve the right to amend this syllabus to reflect any shifting realities we may encounter. I will be certain to let you know in advance if and when there will be any changes to deadlines or the schedule.