Hello 80 Works'ers for Winter 09 --
Here for your downloading pleasure are the 80 Works Class Overview and the 80 Works Syllabus as PDF files. I'll include the overview here as well.
Class Overview
The class has two types of exercises:
Foundation exercises will give us a taste of collaborative working conditions and potential roles that we may fulfill in a fast-paced design agency. It will also allow us to experience the challenges inherent in client-designer dynamics in a controlled and constructive manner.
Stretch exercises. These assignments are meant to cover a wide range of deliverables that a working designer would create across most of today’s prominent design disciplines. They are also meant to give us a taste of the range of approaches we need to take in order to find appropriate design solutions quickly. A small number of these assignments will be revisions of class-created materials, while others will require working in small groups outside of class.
You will not be provided with a full syllabus of assignments for the entire course, as we may be tempted to work ahead a few weeks. A luxury of time is rare in the world of design.
You will help create the class
Many of the 80 Works have been created by me or derived from classic exercises that are required in design school. The rest will created by you. This will allow you to try your hand at designing things that you’ve always wanted to create, but never had a suitable assignment to tackle. Every Thursday after Class 01, each designer will be required to bring an exercise to the class on a range of provided topics. Your teacher will assign at least 20 of those exercises to the class over the life of the seminar. (They need to be challenging, but don’t come up with something too diabolical.) Please craft your exercise within one of the categories shown in the 80 Works Class Overview PDF.
80 Works expectations
1. You should fulfill every assignment and bring it to class, no matter what. Work fast. Turn your editor off. Take as many risks as possible. The greater the risk in the work that you’re attempting, the more important that you bring it to class. You shouldn’t have time to sit around and think about whether what you’re doing is good.
2. Everything gets shown to the group, no matter what. Each assignment will get a quick group critique. Listen to how other people view it, and what they think it can become. This is invaluable input. Don’t defend what you meant to accomplish in the time frame, but just didn’t get there. This class is about possibilities, not finality.
3. Failure on some of the projects will happen, no matter what. Keep notes on what works and what doesn’t work. Learn to fail faster. As we get to the end of the class, we’ll focus on what can be extracted from your best works over the life of the class. When you have some free time, you can start thinking portfolio and polish.
For a good starter on working agile as a designer, take a look at a recent article on Ideas on Ideas.
See you on Thursday! Please be sure to fill out the class questionnaire as well... it's critical for our first class assignment.
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