This course serves as an introduction to the ways 3D imagery can be used by illustrators, both directly and indirectly. Using the software Blender (open source) and Zbrush, we will examine the ways to create and use forms and textures both realistic and imaginary to produce images and solve problems common to many forms of illustration, both digital and traditional. Animation will be covered, but only in the most limited sense: such as for looping animated GIFs and for the creation of simulated physical effects.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

This course offers an introduction to the many artistic and technical aspects of designing and producing characters, environments and props for 3D games. Among the topics we will explore are the design of effective low-polygon characters and scenes, texturing and UV mapping, simple character rigging and effective collaborative design and execution. Software used: Photoshop and Maya (PLE). Knowledge of Photoshop, basic computer skills. Some familiarity with 3D computer modeling is helpful, but not essential.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

This course will approach visual problems within the context of creating goods for sale. Some of the projects we will work on include coming up with a brand identity, producing limited edition risograph zines, prints, and other handmade tangible goods. A guest artist will be invited to present case studies will provide real world insights into starting a small business. The work produced in the class will be sold at the ISB Spring Art Sale (happening in late April/early May) and all students in the class will participate in order to gain a hands-on understanding of the business side of illustration, including pricing, promotion, and market research. Class time will be divided between group critique and exercises introducing new techniques and design principles. The assignments will provide opportunities to apply these principles in real world scenarios. This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

This typography course is specifically designed for Illustration majors. We will study the fundamentals of typography including its history, theory and contemporary practical application. Lectures and exercises will build in complexity from the study of letter forms and the effective use of typography in single page design. A significant part of the course will be dedicated to understanding page dynamics including proportion, grid systems and color. The final project will be a poster design for a local non- profit organization. Students will use Adobe Illustrator and InDesign throughout this course; so some basic computer experience will be helpful but not absolutely necessary.

This course fulfills the Computer Literacy requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

This course explores the role of illustrator as graphic designer, with a focus on the fundamentals of designing with imagery, the relationship between verbal and visual communication, and the complementary partnership between graphic design and illustration. Students are encouraged to have some fundamental experience with computers before enrolling in this course. This course fulfills the Computer Literacy elective requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

Design For Good sits at the intersection of illustration, graphic design, and brand identity, with a focus on non-profits and social issues. Working across print and digital media, this course will challenge students to create innovative visual communication that motivates people around a social cause. Students will learn what makes a compelling visual identity, as well as a compelling story. Throughout the course of the semester, students will create brand identities based in illustration, along with visual and typographic guidelines, and apply it to creative campaigns, packaging design, and social media platforms. Through a series of weekly & bi-weekly assignments, students will build a portfolio of pieces that tie together as a unified, illustrated brand identity. Students are encouraged to conduct their own research & interviews with non-profit organizations as part of this course. Group work in class, research, individual presentations & group critiques are an essential part of this course.

Elective

Illustrated typography and hand lettering are enjoying a wonderfully prominent place in the visual landscape of design, publishing and illustration, and have become an increasingly vital part of many illustrator's professional portfolios. What can illustrated type and it's particular characteristics provide as an alternative to established typefaces? How does an illustrator find the right balance between form and function, expression and readability? This course will provide the opportunity to employ drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, photography, digital tools and other media in the creation of unique letterforms. Students will be encouraged to experiment with non-traditional materials -including three-dimensional ones. Beginning with an introduction to basic typographic elements, terminology, and font families, students will move into creating their own unique lettering for projects including posters, book covers, and packaging. Typography will be the central focus, but students will have leeway as to the degree with which it is integrated with other illustrative imagery. Along with these projects students will create a complete unique typeface over the course of the semester. Relevant issues related to hand drawn text-type for comics, picture books, and graphic novels - including appropriateness, readability and voice, will also be covered.

Elective

This course combines the business of art and design, transforming the creative impulse to a marketable deliverable. Students are encouraged to think beyond the confines of traditional markets, working collaboratively toward the goal of employing inventive thinking in the workplace with the goal of an independently owned and operated enterprise. A fundamental objective of this class is for students to understand a basic business vocabulary, to explore how design-driven business and creative studio thinking overlap, and to understand how creative skills can be used to identify and execute business opportunities. Students will be introduced to business concepts through lectures, case studies, assignments and class discussion. Assignments will work off the classroom pedagogy and topics covered will be business models, marketing, finance, and strategy as they relate to studio activity.

Elective

The Changing Narrative will explore the challenges and possibilities of innovative storytelling structure: non-linear, interactive, multimedia. In this class, students will create inventive work at the intersection of physical and digital media, the old and the new. Students will be introduced to classic dramatic structures across cultures-Asian Kishotenketsu, Freytag's pyramid, Shakespearean tragedy-and learn fundamental digital skills via class demonstrations and exercises. Drawing from these patterns and tools, students will then seek to unveil new storytelling possibilities granted by modern technology (computer animation, touch screen interaction, hypermedia) to traditional artforms (illustration, comics, gaming). What happens when a comic's panel starts to move? Where does a story go if the reader is allowed to make decisions? Students will investigate these creative avenues and create playful, hybrid stories. Along the course of the semester, assignments will notably include short-form animated illustrations, experiments with gamebooks and cartoon strips, culminating in a final, long-form narrative project.

This course fulfills either the Illustration Concepts elective requirement OR the Computer Literacy requirement (not both) for Illustration majors.

Open to Junior or Senior Illustration Students.

Elective

This course celebrates books of all kinds, for readers of all ages. We start by studying picture books for children and make our way through graphic novels (comics), the young adult novel, poetry, fiction for adults, etc. The last part of the semester is spent creating a book of your own choosing from one of these genres.

Elective

At their very core, all books convey a sequence of ideas, but the execution varies widely from one volume to another. In this course, juniors and seniors strive to extend this concept outside of traditional book parameters to achieve their own creative interpretation. Working from their own themes, students mold an innovative presentation of images and concepts in two dimensions or three, using concrete depictions or abstract forms in the construction of their own unique artist's book. Assignments include the study of different folds, narrative problems, poetic counting, lost and found, and a free project of the student's choice. Students are encouraged to continue their own media that might include painting, construction, printmaking, etc.

Elective

In this class, we will explore the children's picture book as a medium of artistic expression. During the first half of the semester, we will experiment with a number of storytelling techniques and principles while also focusing on different approaches to the format, illustration, and design of picture books. The second half of the semester will be dedicated to the creation of the final project: each student will complete a book dummy for an original children's picture book accompanied by several finished Illustrations.

This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for LAS-E416 and ILLUS-3612.

Elective

Children have an underestimated capacity to process complex stories, and are often misunderstood as an audience. Their hungry minds depend on imagery to make sense of life and to navigate through their evolving worlds. In this course, students will explore a variety of art forms destined to educate, stimulate and delight children-books, displays, characters, games. Assignments will include works for a variety of industries including publishing, advertising, gift/novelty, and focus on a range of age groups: toddlers to teens. Students will be challenged to create opportunities for discovery that are worthy of this curious and gracious audience.

Elective

In their brevity and concentrated potency, short stories are compelling material for illustration. This course invites students to illustrate short fiction authored by a variety of voices and in several genres, while allowing for formal and conceptual development and the cultivation of distinctive visual character (or style) along the way. Reading, analysis, ideation and execution are central to course content. Estimated Cost of Materials: $10.00 - $50.00

Elective

An all encompassing visual autobiography won't happen in five weeks but Wintersession does give us the exceptional opportunity to embrace the spirit of memoir, here brought to life as illustrations. Your personal stories undoubtedly touch on universal themes : childhood, coming of age, cultural identity, navigating the unfamiliar, overcoming obstacles, among countless others. We'll use journals to recollect the past and examine the present as part of the creative process - transforming raw material into reworked sketches that ultimately become polished illustrations with you at their center.

Elective

The ability to play is a complex activity that is at the core of human learning. Games are a structured form of play that allow us to explore social interactions, take risks, set goals, develop skills and expand our imaginations while entertaining us without serious consequences. What makes a game fun? Or memorable? In this class, we will explore the intersections of learning, experimentation, and play. In our constructed projects, we will search for innovative ways to expand or reinvent game traditions. Through individual and collaborative projects, we will examine how game mechanics (rules/systems) thoughtfully combined with game aesthetics (visuals/story) can be used to craft engaging, memorable and informative user/player experiences. Our goal is to develop primarily non-digital games that are conceptually innovative responses to various questions you pose related to play. Quality assurance and usability concerns will be explored through group play tests.

Illustration, along with painting, printmaking and many other visual art practices, is continually intertwined with music. From illustrators collaborating on videos, packaging and promotion, to creating graphic novels and picture biographies of musicians and musical movements, the tradition of connecting the visual to the acoustic has a rich history. Music is often celebrated in larger and in a more tactile ways than on a screen-and we are seeing the enduring inventiveness of the gig poster, and even the 12 inch LP cover is still alive as a canvas. Projects in this class will explore promotional, interpretive, and investigative approaches as they relate to musicians, lyrics and titles, as well as parallels between music and visual art. Students will have the chance to interpret musical works in a number of ways, including through narrative approaches, using sculpture, animation and GIFs, and other less conventional means. There will be exploration of analogous aspects of music and visual art-sound and color, time based works, performative aspects and related ideas (e.g.: the movements of the hand while drawing/painting as analogous to playing an instrument). There will be some focus too, on genres and movements where music and art have close relationships, ie: psychedelia, pop and op art, comics and set design. Lectures and discussion will also be devoted to learning about artists who create both visual and musical work.

This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration majors.

Elective

This course is meant to give students an understanding of the process of serigraphy. Using the basic T-shirt as the format, emphasis will be on creating and developing a concept: learning and implementing the techniques of silk-screen in order to produce wearable illustration. The course will also include historical and contemporary issues on the phenomenon of the printed shirt, including uses ranging from social protest to advertising and the use of the body as a substrate for images. A variety of techniques will explore everything from simple handmade stencils to the use of photo/computer technology to create individual designs. Assignments will be given through the developmental phase, and in-class critiques will play an important role in determining the final product. By the end of the semester, students will also investigate the business/commercial side of silk-screening, including at-home studio setup, recordkeeping and selling the product.

Elective

This course surveys a wide range of effects possible through versatile printmaking methods including monotype, relief printing and drypoint. The emphasis is on experimentation rather than editioning prints.

Elective

As the world's first print technique, woodcut had a profound affect on the development of all printing -especially the Japanese woodblock process which has influenced so many artists. It uses minimal technology, requiring only a sturdy table, a few simple cutting and inking tools, and a wooden spoon to print the block. Despite the simplicity of the medium, resulting prints are as individual as the artist who makes them. An artist is able to make many identical prints of their image, which makes woodcut a great tool for experimenting with your ideas. Whether you enjoy work with a bold graphic quality or a delicate organic line, woodcut is an ideal medium for those that enjoy the physicality of materials. The class will cover the basics of woodcut prints to gain an understanding of the three components of this process: color separation, carving, and printing. Participants will learn about the required materials and tools, how to safely and effectively cut an image into the woodblock, and how to print it. The class will focus on how to organize and print large scale, complex, nuanced multicolored woodcuts. Reduction and multi-block techniques will be shown as a means of developing personal imagery. This one-of-a- kind course gives students a traditional printmaking skill that is environmentally friendly, can be done at home, on any scale.

Elective