Thomas Martinez Pilnik

Course Description


This course provides a comprehensive study of visual communication focusing on graphic design from 1900 to the present. We will introduce you to design thinking, language, and principles including political and cultural implications.

Through lectures, demonstrations, and critiques, students learn traditional design elements, while also surveying major design periods through history. Students learn how design elements play a part in historical eras within architecture, graphic design, and fine arts. The course serves as a theoretical foundation for future design courses by furnishing students with the necessary background to confidently and independently craft their way forward.

This course will also push students into modernity: by subverting white & western norms of design theory, we will - as a class - explore contemporary social movements through a theoretical design lens. By pushing the boundaries of classical design theory, this course serves to prepare students to construct a personal praxis in order to design into the 21st century and beyond.


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