I’m excited to look at the final drafts of your Unit #1 posters and read your memos about that assignment. I know that many of you encountered some technological challenges along the way, but I hope you haven’t let those challenges discourage you. Remember: we’re just getting started, and there is plenty of time to strengthen your software skills. Having said that, please come talk to me now if you are feeling overwhelmed — I don’t want to see minor frustrations turn into major problems down the road.

With Unit #1 behind us, we are ready to dive in to Unit #2, the Visual Identity Package. This weekend, you and your teammates should be on the lookout for organizations in Austin that might make good clients for this project. Gather materials from these organizations or take pictures of their signage, then come to class on Tuesday with a few candidates for your team to consider.

Here’s how we’ll spend our time in class next week:

• On Tuesday, you will meet with your team to select a client for Unit #2, then meet with me briefly so I can approve your plans. We will also catch up on last week’s reading assignment from Thinking with Type (pp. 48–83) and discuss what “brand identity guidelines” look like, using the St. Edward’s University Brand Identity Guidelines as a model. You do not need to print out this document, but please download the PDF from the Readings page and read it before you come to class.
• On Thursday, we will discuss the use of graphics in printed documents; please read Chapter 7 in Document Design before you come to class. We will also study some examples of successful brand identities, so your homework for class is to choose an organization that has a brand identity you like, then collect several examples of that brand in action. Bring your materials to class and be ready to explain why you think this particular brand is successful.

Good luck scouting out successful (and not so successful) brands this weekend!

I hope our workshop session yesterday was helpful, and I hope you feel a little more confident in your ability to complete the poster assignment. I know that many of you are feeling stretched to your technological limits right now (and probably cursing InDesign under your breath), but please don’t get discouraged. Remember: your posters don’t need to be complicated to be successful; simple posters that follow the basic principles of design we’ve been discussing can be highly effective.

Next week, we will wrap up our first unit and move on to the next big project. Here’s how we’ll spend our time in class:

• On Tuesday, we will make up our “lost” day from Week 3. Please read pages 7–47 in Thinking with Type before you come to class. We will spend most of class in a peer critique session, so you will need to bring both electronic and printed versions of your three posters to class. (It’s OK if the printed copies are in black and white.) Your posters may be a bit “drafty,” but they should be far enough along that your classmates can provide you with feedback about how to fine tune your designs.
• On Thursday, I will introduce our second major assignment, the Visual Identity Package, and put you in teams for this project. To prepare for our discussion about branding and visual identity, please read pages 48–83 in Thinking with Type before you come to class. In addition, the final draft of your Unit #1 project is due at the beginning of class. Please bring printed copies of your three posters and your memo to class (it might be wise to review the assignment sheet), and please upload a zipped file containing your project folder to my Dropbox before you come to class. (I will send out the password for my Dropbox via email and repeat it in class on Tuesday.)

If you have any questions about these instructions, please let me know. Otherwise, good luck with your posters!

Our first InDesign workshop taught us a few lessons, the most important of which is this: technology takes time. Part of your homework for this class includes working through online tutorials, getting comfortable with new software programs, and finding answers to your technology questions. If you’re falling behind on this aspect of the course, please catch up this weekend. If you’re looking for computer labs on campus that have InDesign, you can find a list on the IT website (scroll down until you see “Adobe Creative Suite 5”).

By now, you should be finished with the first InDesign workshop (we won’t spend any more time in class on this) and moving forward with your own poster designs for Unit #1. Next week, we will turn our attention to typography, then conduct a peer critique session to help you with your posters. Here’s how we’ll accomplish those goals:

• On Tuesday, we will discuss some basic principles of typography, then try to incorporate those principles into your poster designs. We will also briefly discuss how to find appropriate images to use in your posters. Before you come to class, please read Chapter 6 in Document Design and make sure that you have created InDesign files for your three posters.
• On Thursday, we will continue our discussion of typography, so please read pages 7–47 in Thinking with Type before class. We will spend most of class working in small groups to critique your posters, so you will need to come to class with PDF versions of your three posters. It’s fine if your posters are “drafty,” but you should have three separate posters at this point, and they should be complete enough that your classmates can recognize which poster is which. UPDATE: Based on what I saw in class on Tuesday, I have decided to turn Thursday’s class into a workshop session. We will postpone the reading assignment and the peer critique session until next Tuesday. Instead, please come to class ready to conduct focused work on your posters.

One final note: I added a page to the website containing links to the two video tutorials I created on Wednesday, so please let me know if you’d like me to cover other topics using this approach.

Good luck with your posters — I can’t wait to see what you come up with when we meet next week!

I really enjoyed our first two days of class this week. I can tell from our discussions that we’re going to have a lively and engaging semester. I can also tell that some of you are scared to death by the technology requirements in this class, but please don’t worry — we will go at a steady and reasonable pace, and I’m confident that you can do as well on these projects as you want to.

Next week we will cover some basic principles of design and get familiar with Adobe InDesign in order to complete the poster project. Here are the details for each class session:

• On Tuesday, we will review Chapter 1 (which we didn’t get to last time) and Chapter 2 in Document Design, then hold our first InDesign tutorial workshop. If you have never used InDesign before (or if you feel like you need a refresher), please watch the videos on the Adobe TV website. In particular, you should watch “Getting Started” and “GS-01” through “GS-07.” By the time you come to class on Tuesday, you should be familiar with the InDesign interface and ready to start using the program. If you feel like you need extra help, there are dozens of online video tutorials for InDesign, which you can find by searching Google Videos for “InDesign CS5 tutorial.” In addition, you should begin collecting examples of effective posters and flyers that might serve as inspiration for your posters.
• On Thursday, we will review Chapter 3 in Document Design, then hold an InDesign workshop that will give you time to work on your posters and get feedback from your classmates about potential poster designs. Before you come to class, please sketch out three different ideas for one of your posters. Each idea should occupy a different 8.5×11-inch page, and each idea should be significantly different from the others. (No, you don’t need to be an artist to do this. Yes, stick figures are fine.) Bring these sketches to class on Thursday.

Finally, you may have noticed a new addition to the homepage of the course website. I’ll be bookmarking articles and websites that are relevant to our class this semester, so if you read or watch something online that might be helpful or just interesting to your classmates, please send me a link.

I think that’s it for now, but don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions before we meet on Tuesday. Otherwise, I’ll see you then. Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Welcome to ENGW 2329: Information Design. This website will function as the online headquarters for our class this semester. Each week, I will post an update to the website with details about coming week, deadline reminders, links to helpful resources, etc… I plan to use SEU’s Blackboard site to record your grades, but otherwise, everything related to this course will be posted here. If you ever wonder what’s due on a particular date, or what you need to read before you come to class, you can check this website for the answer. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can email me or stop by my office (211 Premont Hall) during my office hours (M/W 9:00–12:00).

A bit about me: This is my second year as an assistant professor at St. Edward’s University. Before I moved to Austin, I spent six year at Iowa State University completing my graduate work and teaching classes in ISU’s English Department. I study the relationship between technology and communication, and I love experimenting with new technologies in the classroom and in my personal life. I’m married to a brilliant freelance writer and we have two daughters. After a year in Austin, I can confidently state that I love the restaurants and I hate the heat.

I’m incredibly excited about teaching this course. Most of my free time is spent reading about topics like visual rhetoric, information architecture, data visualization, and user-centered design, and this class will blend bits and pieces from all of those fields into what I hope will be a unified whole. If you just read that previous sentence and thought, Huh?, don’t worry — I’m not expecting you to have any previous experience with those subjects. I know that most of you are Writing and Rhetoric majors and that this course may take you out of your comfort zone, but by the end of the semester I’m confident that you won’t be able to make it through a day without thinking about the way that information is designed.

We’re going to dive right in to our first assignment this week, so you’ll need to read Chapter 1 in Document Design before you come to class on Thursday. In addition, please remember the two mini-assignments I gave you on Tuesday:

1. Pay close attention to the posters and flyers you see in the coming days and weeks. If possible, grab a few of them (or take pictures of them) and bring them to class.
2. Start collecting documents of all kinds: newsletters, brochures, posters, pamphlets, instruction manuals, maps, menus, government forms, etc., etc… You can keep these documents in a folder, if you’d like, or you can bring them to class and I’ll maintain a collection that we’ll use throughout the semester.

Well, I think that covers it for now. I’ll see you in class on Thursday!