Visual Unit Criteria and Stretch Goals

Work to have done:

Work on your visual arguments, and push a rhetorical collage preview to GitHub: .xcf file, GIMP screenshot, and text description, plus updated list of assets/credits. Exported .png or .jpg strongly encouraged.

Plan for the Day:

Reflective writing (5 min)
Refresher on visual arguments we’ve liked (5 min)
Gathering criteria (45 min)
Sources, assets, permissions, citations (5-10 min)
EXT: Studio and microconferences

1. Reflective writing (5 min)

In your own space – you won't have to share this unless you want to – do a little writing about your visual argument in progress. What's exciting about it? What's challenging about it? What are you unsure of?

2. Refresher on visual arguments we’ve liked (5 min)

Shift now in your writing to think about the blog posts on rhetorical collages in the wild – or, if you haven’t read through them in a while, look at them quickly now with an eye toward what people are praising in these images: what seems to make a visual design work well, especially for making some intervention in the world or the viewer? Jot down some notes.

3. Gathering criteria (45 min)

Primed now by that writing and thinking, I’m going to ask you to get in groups and brainstorm in pursuit of baseline and aspirational criteria for this unit.

3a. Let’s group up by table again

Aim for 3-5 people per group. (If you end up with 6, split into two groups. Less than three, join another small group.)

NB: Getting the monitors out of the way seems to work best if you face the wires toward the holes, even though it means you’ll be looking at the screens’ backs.

3b. Crowdsource ideas (10 min)

To bring all our notes together while allowing for real-time collaboration, use this google doc: bit.ly/cdm2020spring-criteria.

Take 10 minutes in groups to make some lists: given the goals of the unit, what should we set as our minimum criteria for full credit? What are some ways we might push beyond that minimum – not merely in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality or challenge level? That is, I really want you to see these aspirational goals as opportunities to stretch yourselves and your skills, not just to do more of the same. Think about what would be new and potentially exciting – but not required for everyone.

EXT: If your group feels finished, skip ahead: read through other groups’ notes, or start gathering thoughts on fonts and/or GIMP.

3c. Discuss and Integrate (30 min)

Quickly read through the other groups’ notes, adding comments in the margins to upvote or propose modifications. As you see consensus forming, propose an official version for our list of shared criteria. If debates emerge, we can hash them out.

We’ll refine as a group, and repeat, and then come back and revise after Tuesday’s workshop.

If we have time left, make two quick lists (just about a minute each):

Things I’ve learned about fonts (or GIMP)
Questions I have about fonts (or GIMP)

Share within your group, using what you’ve learned to try to answer each others’ questions.

For next time:

Work to bring in a full draft: a solid attempt at a complete visual argument, ideally meeting baseline criteria. Rough edges are still welcome.
Continue taking periodic screenshots and posting meaningful commit messages in Git
Remember that you should give your project a name you can continue using through the final draft, so you can track the changes with version control
Push a full draft, with the same four parts as the preview plus an updated file crediting your sources and permissions/license to use them
- NB: I’m only suggesting all-caps for special files readers might want to find quickly. It kind of loses the effect if everything is in caps. (Better to be all lowercase, if you have to choose.)
- Whether Box or GitHub, double-check that you can open the file: try downloading it into a different location. If it doesn’t open with all the layers you’d want, try saving the project again. (You may have exported the first time.)
Bring a camera (phone is fine), to take photos of feedback received