Visual Unit Criteria and Stretch Goals

Work to have done:

• Read up on and maybe play with fonts
• Work on your visual arguments, and push a rhetorical collage preview to GitHub: .xcf (or .psd) file, GIMP (or Photoshop) screenshot, and text description, plus updated list of assets/credits. Exported .png of the collage-in-progress.

Plan for the Day:

1. Reflective writing (5 min)
2. Refresher on visual arguments we’ve liked (5 min)
3. Gathering criteria (30-40 min)
4. Studio (25-35 min)
5. EXT: Talking fonts

0. Help me make sure your files are interoperable

On Thursday, you’ll be downloading and responding to each other’s repositories. For that exchange, it would help me greatly if you could let me know who’s working in GIMP, and who’s working in Photoshop. Can you please add your name to the appropriate list in the google doc? Thanks!

1. Reflective writing (5 min)

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 you’re drawn to 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. Preamble (5 min)

There are several reasons I like this collaborative process:

• It helps keep my own expectations in the realm of what’s possible, especially but not only in world altered by COVID, and so sets you up for success.
• It asks you to talk to each other about what you value. Sometimes you only figure out what you value by talking to other people about it – whether because someone puts words to something previously inchoate, or because you realize you disagree, or because you realize you’re not alone.
• It gives you practice in making explicit otherwise implicit criteria. This isn’t the last time you’ll be asked to compose in a new genre, and only rarely will someone tell you how it’s supposed to work.

So I do hope you’ll talk within your groups about what’s doable, what’s worth doing, and what’s worth trying even if it doesn’t get done.

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 just in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality?

3b. Review, comment, and suggest (10 min)

Like last time, I’ve posted criteria from previous semesters in our shared google doc as a starting point.

EXT: If you finish early, move on to the next section.

3c. Respond to each other (10-15 min)

Read through the other groups’ notes, adding collegial replies to their comments in the margins to upvote, ask questions, or propose modifications.

Make sure to loop back to your own comments to see if you’ve picked up anything to respond to.

EXT: If you finish early, move on to the next section.

4. Studio While I Synthesize (25 min)

I’ll work solo to write up a clean list that reflects your consensus in the comments, while you all work solo (with groupmates on-hand for questions or other feedback) on your projects and any needed tutorials.

To begin: know that you are mutual fonts of knowledge (10 min)

Before you start, make two quick lists (just about a minute each):

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

Share within your group (5-10 min), using what you’ve learned to try to answer each others’ questions.

Questions your group can’t answer? Post them to the google doc, and see if another group can answer. I’ll look there, too.

Don't forget to save and commit as you go!

EXT: If you’re feeling stuck in studio, check to see if you can answer questions in the doc; otherwise, use any remaining time to work on your projects and view any needed tutorials.

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.
  • Remember that you don’t need to change the project filename from draft to draft: Why duplicate or triplicate your file storage needs? If it’s the same basic project, just further along, you can and keep track of which draft is which by describing what’s new in your commit messages.
• Continue taking periodic screenshots and posting meaningful commit messages in Git
• By Thursday morning, push the draft, with the same four parts as the preview plus an updated file crediting your sources and permissions/license to use them
  • NB: Your filenames should have an extension at the end, like .md (for Markdown files) or .txt (for plaintext files). These extensions tell the computer how to render the file. Without that info, GitHub will default to treating things as text, but your workshop partner’s computer may just get confused and not display it at all.
  • Whether Box or GitHub, double-check that you can open your main project 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: a good idea, but not really sufficient.)