Students to Use Their Graphical

¶ … students to use their graphical design knowledge in order to demonstrate a thesis, which they will have researched during the course of the fifteen weeks that class is in session. Students will come up with a thesis, or some sort of argument that they want to make, based on their observations and topics that interest them. Students should not become overly committed to a topic, however, as their research may take them in other directions. Furthermore, students need to insure that they do not choose a thesis that is obvious or claim to prove anything. The thesis proposal, which should be rather short, will serve as a roadmap for the creation of the thesis and research, though it may change as the research process continues. Students will research their thesis using quality sources from books, media, and the web, in addition to other sources like interviews. Finally, students will choose a form of media through which to present their thesis. The process book is a log of the work that the students have done, including success, failure, research, etc.

For a student of graphic design, this class will be much different than others, which tend to focus on creativity, as well as the more technical aspects of design. In this course, students will act more like researchers and scientists than designers. This course will be invaluable because it will teach students not only to come up with a unique design that fits together with some research, but instead to learn how to conduct research themselves, and then mold their designs around the research. This will allow students to understand the process of researchers, and to come to the project with a different viewpoint. It may even convince many students that in the course of their professional work, they should learn more about the research before designing products, etc.