WORKSHOP OF COMUNICATION DESIGN (Partizione A)
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2018/2019
- Teacher
- VERONICA DAL BUONO
- Credits
- 13
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- ICAR/13
Training objectives
- The programme offered by Laboratorio di Design della Comunicazione (Communication Design Laboratory - studio), is aimed to develop students’ understanding and mastery of the principles, theories, methods and instruments required to design communication artefacts.
The course introduces students to the basics of graphic design (lettering, colour, composition), with the objective of developing strategies and solutions that give form to printed work and products.
The Lab promotes an open, dynamic and collaborative approach between students and teachers.
The programme has a clearly defined structure, however it is flexible and open to any changes, variations, improvements that may become appropriate as the course progresses and the lectures and collective works of the students in classroom inspire new opportunities. Prerequisites
- The Communication Design studio – the first project work for the newly enrolled students – does not require specific prerequisites, such as software proficiency, but it presumes and/or stimulates the acquisition of good design thinking and handicraft drawing skills using basic materials (such as paper and cardboard). Students’ abilities will be strengthened thanks to practical activities included in the programme. Of course, interest and commitment to the subject are essential enrolment requirements.
Course programme
- The students of the Course will be trained for todays' communications need through both theory and practice. The 2018-2019 Course programme will develops projects around the topic of small merchandising artifacts for the valorization of the university institution. The projects will be carried out with the aim of promoting institutions, public bodies, companies.
As the definition of corporate image is studied and reported to the concept of corporate identity, opening the unquenchable debate between age and identity (1), students will face the concept of “Merchandising” in its general sense of streghtening strategy of the identity of university institution, public bodies, companies. In the common language, the term – linked to the promotional strategies planned to increase visibility, diffusion, and the capacity of selling products (accessorizes, gadgets, clothes, …) representing institutions, associations or brands – identifies not just the visibility strategy, but the objects themselves that can represent identity values of the institution. This double meaning, visibility strategy and object itself, will be at the basis of the students’ projects.
Students are encouraged to develop their creativity in relation to the intrinsic properties of individual crafts – material (products) and immaterial (contents) – and in terms of the relations that can be established between products and public.
(1) Veronica Dal Buono, "Comunicare l’Università nel XX secolo”, p. 94, in Veronica Dal Buono, Comunicare l’Università, Ferrara, Media MD, 2016, pp. 96. Didactic methods
- The course includes a series of theory lessons and a number of activities and tests which will take place on the premises of the Department of Architecture. The laboratories and state rooms on the ground floor of Palazzo Tassoni Estense will be used for mid-course tests to evaluate the students’ presentation abilities and, at the end of the course, will host the final exam and the exhibition of their work.
Attendance is mandatory. In their evaluation, teachers will take into account attendance. Learning assessment procedures
- The role of the final exam is to verify the level of achievement of the previously mentionded training objectives.
These objectives are pursued, with increasing complexity, through the succession of three sequential phases:
- the first and second phases concern the learning of conceptual and instrumental methods together to the production of project drawings;
- the third phase concerns the exposition-discussion of the achieved results.
First phase
Students will deal with low complexity practical-analytical exercises to be carried out in the classrooms, under the supervision of the teachers who will give theoretical and instrumental lessons on the topics of typography, graphic design, editorial publications and merchandising, too.
Each exercise is evaluated in thirtieths and it will contibuite to establish the average of the various exercises carried out in the first phase of the course; the average will affect 30% on the final evaluation.
Second phase
During the advanced phase of the didactic calendar, students will carry out the project of communication design concerning to the theme of the Course: for the A.A. 2018-2019 the experience is focused on “Image and identity: a merchandising project for University”. The work will be mainly performed in the classroom in groups and carried out in the form of co-design (through sharing, integration and transfer among the members of the group) .
The project consists in the development of the assigned theme whose results will be delivered through a series of artefacts (in two-dimensional and / or prototyped print - in three-dimensions - 1:1 scale) based on the briefing requests explained by the teachers.
The projects - constantly shared with the teachers - will evolve along the timetable of the official calendar of the course, to which are added final moments before the exam.
Third phase
The exam is held through the discussion of the works at the ground floor of Palazzo Tassoni Estense.
The groups will present their projects by illustrating the thematic research and the initial analysis, the general concept, the choice of communication elements (font, iconography, colors, proportions, composition).
The evaluation will take into account the originality, consistency and precision of the project and the presentation will highlight the level of linguistic-conceptual acquisition on Communication design resulting from the study of the reference literature of the Course suggested by the teaching staff.
The evaluation of the works concerning the project of “Image and identity: a merchandising project for University” will affect 70% on the final evaluation.
Furthermore, teachers will take into account attendance and participation during lessons and they may assign different votes to the individual members of the group. Reference texts
- Testi di riferimento
Massimo Vignelli, Peter Laundry, Graphic Design for Non-Profit Organization, New York, The American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1980, pp. 48.
Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris, Il manuale del graphic design. Progettazione e produzione, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2009, pp. 191.
Veronica Dal Buono, Comunicare l’Università, Ferrara, Media MD, 2016, pp. 96.
Università di Ferrara, Comunicare l’Università degli Studi di Ferrara. Manuale di indentità visiva, Media MD, 2018.
Franco Achilli, Fare grafica editoriale, Firenze, Editrice Bibligorafica, 2018, 175.
Testi consigliati
Bruno Munari, Da cosa nasce cosa, Bari, Laterza, 1981, pp. 385.
Michele Spera, Abecedario del grafico. La progettazione tra creatività e scienza, Roma, Gangemi Editore, 2005, pp. 541.
Daniele Baroni, Maurizio Vitta, Storia del design grafico, Milano, Longanesi, 2007, pp. 335.
Gavin Ambrose, Paul Harris, Il libro del layout, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2009, pp. 232.
Ellen Lupton, Caratteri, testo, gabbia. Guida critica alla progettazione grafica, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2010, p. 192.
Riccardo Falcinelli, Critica portatile al visual design: da Gutenberg ai social network, Torino, Einaudi, 2014, pp. 321.
Alfonso Acocella (a cura di), Paper Design, Firenze, Altralinea, 2015, pp. 208.
Francesco Trabucco, Design, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2015, pp. 139.
Massimo Vignelli, Vignelli Canon. http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf
