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Course Description

Students 18 and up encouraged to enroll.

This course is for serious makers and for students new to imagemaking. Imagemaking is a fluid and exciting area of graphic design that comes out of practice and process: experimenting fearlessly, showing and sharing ideas, and giving and receiving knowledgable and constructive input. 

For the sake of the online platform, we have applied some structure to out investigations, but for the most part imagemaking is loose and unstructured. If we must adopt a rule in this course it is only this: you will not become a graphic designer by watching videos alone. Or, don't just make stuff just in your head. So here, the focus is on making, and you are expected to devote serious time and intellectual energy to that activity in this course.

In this course you will experiment with a range of materials and techniques to make images for graphic design, expand your visual vocabulary both in terms of making and talking about work, discuss your work and work of others, and learn how to make, manipulate, and arrange images to create compositions, culminating in the design and production of an image-based book.

The first half of the course is an opportunity to experiment and explore imagemaking in order to expand your visual vocabulary. You will create pieces that are expressive, meditative, or "design-y" to instigate, evoke, experiment, record, explain, or try out a media.

In the second half of this course, we will invite the images to deliberately and intentionally carry meaning and communication through relational moves like juxtaposition, composition, and context. We will look at developing and expanding the range of approaches for putting things together by composing page spreads with your images. Since nothing exists without context, we look at how to intentionally drive the image's connotations, meanings, and associations generated through elements of composition and "visual contracts". Ultimately, you will take the images that you create and make a book from them.

In addition to completing assignments, students will have the option to participate in live, instructor-led discussions and critiques. This supplemental experience allows students to engage with one another as they explore the topics of the course and share feedback. 

Learner Outcomes

In this course you will:     

  • experiment with a range of materials and techniques to make images for graphic design

  • expand your visual vocabulary both in terms of making and talking about work, in order to discuss your work and work of others

  • learn how to make, manipulate, and arrange images to create compositions

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Enroll Now - Select a section to enroll in
Section Title
Introduction to Imagemaking
Type
Online
Dates
Jan 21, 2025 to Feb 25, 2025
Delivery Options
Online-Asynchronous  
Course Fee(s)
Tuition non-credit $475.00 Click here to get more information
Section Fees
Adobe Creative Cloud $250.00 Optional
Section Notes

THIS COURSE IS ACCESSED THROUGH CANVAS

The Canvas platform provides an instructor-led learning experience. These class sizes are small to facilitate discussion and engagement with your instructor and other students. You have access to recorded content from CalArts instructors and may complete the course work at your own pace with set deadlines. The instructor is available in live sessions to answer your questions and provide individualized feedback on assignments. Most Canvas online courses qualify towards a CalArts Certificate.