[co-teaching by Justin Hoffmann]
Packing messages inside names, abbreviations, slogans, short-cuts (etc) has become a necessary skill for designers (dealing daily, like almost everyone, with speed and quantity). Much information however never gets unwrapped (at all).
This semester we will focus on the relation between these name-units and the persons, philosophical movements, hurricanes, songs, stars, theories, dogs (etc.) wrapped inside them. Students will, following the methodology and tradition of editorial design, be asked to assemble different collections of names and be stimulated to fill gaps between them, gather precise background information (name-sources, name-contents, etc.) and ... make connections:
Between one name and another.
Between abstract names and concrete names.
Between you and you with different names.
Between names and computers.
Between failures and names.
Between names and ideas.
Ultimately students will come up with story-like structures, catalogues, manifesto's in which the studied names will function as a 'source-code'.
Naturally, highlighting the naming-aspect of graphic design, we will pay special attention to related medium-topics: logo-design, front-page-design, cover-design, catalogue-design, button-design, package-design, business card-design, etc.
More details will follow at the first meeting.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Romeo and Juliet", Act 2 scene 2
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
Hubert H. Humphrey (1911 - 1978)
They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
Plato
Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
Bill Vaughan
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy
Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?
Lily Tomlin