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:
- 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.
- 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!