Parsons Communication Design
Spring 2024
PUCD 2125 Core 2: Interaction Studio
www.url-link.here

Location: Parsons 2 W 13th Room 809
Time: Tuesday, Thursday 7:00pm - 9:40pm
Amy Fang (Section K studio) / fanga381@newschool.edu
Jacob Pfahl (Section K lab) / pfahlj@newschool.edu

“There are endless possibilities as to what a website could be. What kind of room is a website? Or is a website more like a house? A boat? A cloud?” - Laurel Schwulst

This course is an extensive investigation in interactive concepts and techniques, particularly as it applies to the web. Building upon preexisting knowledge of basic graphic design, composition, and typography, we will learn how to design and develop complex interactive projects — and examine ever-shifting definitions and properties of the web in relation to each of your own design practices.

We will learn how to create expressive web-based experiences that challenge existing digital stereotypes and conventions. Conceptual thinking, playful user experiences, interpretation of content, and general problem solving will be critical in the upcoming weeks together. By the end of the semester, students should be able to demonstrate a comprehension of skills, techniques and processes to realize interactive systems, particularly systems for dealing with unpredictable, variable, and dynamic content.

In our studio hours together, we will emphasize design practice. While you are not expected to become a programmer by the end of this course, the lab section will provide you with technical demonstrations that allow you to develop and properly realize your ideas. Both classes will focus on design, conceptual, and technical achievement and your approach towards these areas.

You’ll learn in this course not only by completing the assignments but by contributing to class critiques, listening to lectures, following along with demos, and discussing readings. It is implied that success in this course is predicated on active participation, helping your classmates improve, and contribution to a critical design class culture. We're looking forward to having an amazing semester with you all!

Click here for the syllabus in its entirety.

Unit 1 / Weeks 1 through 5

How do we exist online? What kinds of online platforms do we find ourselves using everyday? How does the Internet shift our worldview, define who we are?

The first segment of Core 2 Interaction will focus on a review of the tools and concepts required for building interactive experiences. We’ll understand how the Internet works, its evolution, and to make and break code as we start with a simple web project. We’ll learn about speculative design and explore how our platforms can create alternate narratives about who we are, and how the world could be.

Moving from observation, we’ll survey the development of interface aesthetics and how the tools we use define the visual language of digital interfaces. For the first project of the semester, we will experiment with typography and navigation to express a non-linear narrative.

Project 1 / Due 02.20

Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentinian writer famous for his short stories that deal with labyrinths, dreams, religion, and mathematical ideas (particularly set theory concepts like infinity and cardinality). His circuitous and meandering prose, full of allusions and vivid imagery, is a good way to think about the web as a network that has many nodes and many connections that continuously folds upon itself. It is the act of navigating through this maze that brings meaning to the web experience.

Read the short story selections here. Choose one short story and set the text using HTML and CSS (JS optional) so that the reader will not only be able to read the story but also experience your interpretation of the story. Use the visual language of the web—hypertext, responsive design, forms, color, divs—to express the meaning of your selected story. We will be emphasizing nonlinear storytelling as well as typographic expression.

Objectives
To build a multi-page website.
To experiment with navigation to convey meaning.
To interpret a story through expressive typography.

Requirements
You must use multiple views to convey this experience — it will be viewed on both large and small (mobile) screens.
Please do not use representational images, only text (though it is also encouraged to stay away from "drawing" with type).
You may use no more than two typefaces.

Considerations
Point-of-View: What is text? What is writing? How do you see or read this particular text? The most successful projects have 1 point of view that is expressed through a decisive design move (some examples below).
Typography: How does the typography enhance your point of view and help you convey meaning? Pay attention to typographic details: special characters, leading, words per line, etc.
Links: How do internal/external links enhance the meaning of this text?
Scale of the Page: What happens to your site when the browser window is resized? Is it the same? Is it a different design? Are only certain information accessible at certain sizes?
Do not try to illustrate the text. The least successful projects are ones that try to visualize the text literally.