DS1 Introduction

29/3/17 - Week 1
DST60103, Yip Jinchi
Design Studies I: Communication Theory
Introduction

Lecture 1
Ms Jinchi kicked off the lesson by starting a discussion about the general idea of communication and how the visual arts help us deliver messages and motifs.

She then separated us into groups and we were given a line of text to which we were to act out in a game of charades with the whole class. We were however constrained; we weren't allowed to mouth words, write, draw or do anything besides making bodily movements. It demonstrated to us that without access to all these different channels of communication, it would be more difficult and much more time-consuming for us to deliver a concise message to a target audience.

She then went over the general module outline and gave us our first assignment. We were given a song, told to analyse it, and come up with a piece of work that delivered the same message as the original song did. The work could be any type of visual media, as long as it wasn't a poster. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. Our song was Bob Dylan's 'A hard rain's a-gonna fall', an acoustic-rock song from 1963. We were to analyse its meaning and come up with a few sketches and ideas with which we could then translate into a piece of art work, due Week 4.

Aside from that, we were also given another assignment; watch a video explaining what communication is and produce a 5-6 slide presentation next week to present what we learnt, as well as our own personal experiences.