ART 2370 HISTORY OF DESIGN
CAL STATE LA
Fall 24
WED 6:00PM—8:45PM
FA 321
COURSE INFORMATION
Historical survey of design and the design process, including an examination of artistic, cultural, social, and theoretical factors that influence design. Lecture 3 hours.
Course Goals and Student Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Recognize and differentiate local and global design movements, works of important designers, their significance, and their impact on various aspects of culture.
Explain and extrapolate on the interrelationships between design, culture, society, technology, materiality, and the environment.
Make connections between sociological conditions, historical events, cultural environments, and design ideas and artifacts.
Research, write, and orally contribute critical responses to historical and contemporary
design work.
Relate their own visual interests, approaches, and perspectives to historical and contemporary influences.
Topical Outline of the Course Present innovative works and theories of important designers both local and global as well as their impact on history and culture.
Present a genealogy of major design movements across the world and their historical, social, and cultural significance.
Explore the pluralistic and interdisciplinary dimensions of design through readings, discussions, and explorations of different perspectives.
Examine design processes, technologies, and strategies that both shape and reflect historical events, sociological conditions, and cultural environments.
Focus on integrative themes and representative examples that provide opportunities for independent student study and research.
Develop verbal and writing skills necessary for critical engagement of course material through written assignments and oral presentations.
Method
LECTURE
This is a lecture-based in-person class where you are expected to visually and verbally present, write, and participate in acitivties, based on assignment briefs and or reading prompts. Class time will be divided between lectures, presentations, exercises, displays, and readings discussions.
While we are meeting only on Wednesdays, you are expected to use time outside of class to complete work on your assignments. The benefit of a university education is not only the content you are taught in class, but participation in the debate and discussion of your work with a diverse group of people with different perspectives. For that reason, attendance in class is highly encouraged as lessons, discussions, and critique cannot be recreated outside of the classroom.
There may be days where attendance is not required. On those days, online readings and the ability to work from home will be used to augment your learning.
Attendance
Students are required to attend every class and stay for the duration or until dismissed. Demonstrations, discussions, exercises, and lectures cannot be repeated for individuals (although all lectures/assignment briefs/readings are available on Canvas).
In order to make the most of class time, it is important that you arrive to class on time and prepared for the work and topics of that day.
Attendance is taken at the beginning of each class. Being more than 20 minutes late counts as half an absence. You can take a total of 4 full absences (or four weeks worth of classes) for the semester. 5 or more absences will affect your final grade as follows:
5 full absences: Final grade lowered by one letter
7 full absences: Final grade lowered by two letters
10 full absences: F assigned as the final grade
Excused absences require official documentation from a doctor, agency or other authority. Students are responsible for keeping up with what occurred in class, what is expected outside of class and all work–despite the absence. Per University policy, excused absences include; death, injury, or serious illness of a close relation, religious reasons, jury duty or government obligation, and University sanctioned or approved activities such
as sporting activities.
ALWAYS COMPLETE WORK ON TIME,
despite your absence.
Grade Breakdown
A: Student has demonstrated strong evidence
of significant growth in each learning outcome.
B: Student has demonstrated strong evidence
of significant growth in most learning outcomes.
C: Student has demonstrated some evidence
of growth in all learning outcomes.
D: Student has demonstrated some evidence
of growth most learning outcomes, but struggling in some.
F: Student has not demonstrated much growth
in most learning outcomes.
You can view the grading system for Cal State LA at
https://www.calstatela.edu/registrar/academic-status
PLEASE NOTE:
Improvement of work during the semester: If I see that your work has improved significantly during the course of the semester due to the hard work that you are putting in, I will absolutely consider this effort in the evaluation of your work.
At the same time, if your attitude towards your work and in class is tardy and you don’t put in the required effort for your projects or give me last minute first drafts of your work as submissions, it will show in your final grade.
Late Work
Important: All submissions should be made on time.
No exceptions. Overdue (late) assignments without approval will drop one full grade after the due date and another full grade 1 week after the original date of submission. You will have two weeks from your absence to submit the project, after which you will receive an F for the assignment.
This does not apply for ‘Emergency situations’ and you should inform the professor about your situation when you can. You will be exempt from this policy if you have acquired permission from the professor and were given more time to complete the assignment. If for any reason, you know that you will not be able to submit a project on time, you have to talk to the professor in advance. I will be understanding, please have a conversation with me.
Hard work expectations
You are expected to work hard in this class.
The assignments will take planning, dedication, and time. You are expected to produce professional work.
Expectations in the classroom
No cell phones, No surfing, No texting, No social media, unless using it for your work. Give your full attention in the classroom. Alternatively, be marked absent for the day.
Please have your work uploaded for feedback before the beginning of every class. Always package your InDesign files and embed images / outline fonts in your illustrator files so that the fonts and images travel with you. Create high res PDF for print outs and displays. Save work on your cloud + flash drive. Make sure that you do not lose your work for any assignment.
Lost work is late work.
University Policies
Dropping and Adding
Students are responsible for understanding the policies and procedures about add/drops, academic renewal, etc. Students should be aware of the current deadlines and penalties for adding and dropping classes:
https://get.calstatela.edu/Registrar.htm
Student Code of Conduct
Information on student rights and responsibilities, academic honesty, standards of conduct, can be found in Student Code of Conduct:
https://www.calstatela.edu/studentconduct/california-code-regulations-standards-student-conduct
Academic Honesty
Incidents of plagiarism result from students’ lack of understanding about what constitutes plagiarism. All students are expected to familiarize themselves with Cal State L.A.’s policy on plagiarism. Cal State L.A. defines plagiarism as follows: “…the act of using ideas, words, or work of another person or persons as if they were one’s own, without giving proper credit to the original sources.” All work submitted in this course is to be your own scholarly and creative work unless a project specifically requires using another’s work –in those cases the work must be properly credited. http://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/groups/Judicial%20Affairs/Docs/academic_honesty.pdf
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Reasonable accommodation will be provided to any student who is registered with the Office of Students with Disabilities and requests needed accommodation.
FERPA
Under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), students have the right to control the disclosure of personally identifiable information from their education records. This includes a student’s still or video image, and applies to artwork and photography if the student is identifiable. You must be mindful of your fellow students’ privacy rights under FERPA when creating imagery for class assignments. To ensure compliance with FERPA, you must not share (outside of class) any imagery that contains personally identifiable information of other students (including their likenesses) unless you have secured written consent from the student. Similarly, students should not share other students’ work outside of class. Once again, it is the student’s responsibility to ensure they comply with FERPA.
Visual, Textual, and Sound Content Usage
Art students are expected to create all of their own original material for capstone projects. If for any reason it becomes necessary and appropriate to utilize visual, textual or sound content that was created by others or references other original material, the creator and source must be properly credited, in keeping with the University’s Academic Honesty Policy.
asarin@calstatela.edu
OH: W 5:00-6:00 PM
FA 353
All course information
will be available on Canvas.
I will try and respond to you within 24-48 hours on weekdays. Plan accordingly such that this does not hinder your work or assignment submissions.
Go through assignments and try and ask questions earlier in the week.
Required Reading
All required readings
can be found on Canvas.
Required Materials
Hardware
- Modern Mac or PC Desktop or Laptop.
- Adobe CC (can get student discount through MyCalStateLA website) or Google slides (free with a gmail account) or Microsoft Powerpoint or any other program that allows you to make presentations.
- Access to a Camera
(phone camera will work).
Software
- Internet Browser (get any that are applicable to your computer): Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer
- File-Sharing Site: Google Drive, Dropbox (may be needed)
Recommended Materials
(purchase as needed)
Cloud storage (2 GB or larger)
USB storage (portable, 2GB+)
Sketchbook
Coloring pens
Post-It Notes
FA 320 and FA 306 are your Undergraduate Design studios. Students are strongly encouraged to work on projects outside of class in the undergraduate design studios.
Late work due to absence is still late work.
Saving your work
You must back up your work to the cloud as well as to a flash drive. Lost flash drives will NOT be accepted as an excuse for missing homework. You can open a free account with Dropbox or Google Drive or a similar cloud storage system. You will be able to access your work from anywhere.
Organization
It would be helpful to think about how you would organize your work in digital media. Think about how you would like to create a system for storing files that will help you find your work with ease. A master folder with sub folders? What are the categories? Could you have separate folders for Open files, PDFs and Images?
Students shall conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner. Disrupting class damages the ability to learn. The professor can (and will) remove you from the classroom if she believes your presence is disruptive for the learning experience of other students.