Education

Editors: Gitta Domik and Scott Owen

Digital Media and the Beginning Designer Glenn Goldman New Jersey Institute of Technology

When artistic objects are separated from both conditions of origin and operation in experience, a wall is built around them that renders almost opaque their general significance. — John Dewey1

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rt and design history is filled with examples in which product and process comingle. Experiences with and the use of materials, media, and ideas can be so inextricably intertwined that modifying one variable changes the end product. So, it’s no surprise that young or beginning artists, designers, and architects explore different media on the way to creating their product. These individuals’ seemingly obsessive need to create leaves them with little time or patience for anything that appears separated from, or unrelated to, the design experience. So, in a time when information technology is central to creating art, architecture, and design, learning about digital media will likely succeed best when embedded in the design studio or lab-based coursework. Whether officially or unofficially, students and faculty alike separate curricular components of design programs into two categories: studio classes and support courses. That which is embedded in studio classes gets attention. The rest? Not so much. Play, experimentation, and the exploration of materials, media, and ideas are all part of learning. From Jean Piaget to John Dewey, and from an advocacy for “educative experience” to collective parallel play in a digital context applied to a design studio or lab-based course, learning occurs when the student can create meaning—that is, when what’s being learned is relevant to a larger goal and knowledge base.1–3 Much of the literature about the constructivist approach to education and cognitive development refers to young children or to traditional teaching by lecturing.4 However, we can look at university-level students—at least beginning-level architecture and design stu14

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dents—as older children (regardless of age) who are discovering and finding their way. But, at this point, they’re also making conscious decisions about what they want to learn and do. So, how do aspiring designers learn to use the media necessary to create original works? In what contexts and sequence do architecture and design students discover how to use and manipulate various tools? The following case study provides some suggestions.

Methodology and Sequence The New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT’s) College of Architecture and Design has used two models to successfully teach beginning design students about computer graphics. (Actually, the two nominally different implementations are variants of the same model.) The first model, used at NJIT’s School of Architecture, embeds computer graphics instruction in the discipline-specific design studio (see Figure 1) and teaches students how to use media when creating their designs. The second model, used at NJIT’s School of Art + Design, reverses the order by blending design disciplines (in this case, interior, industrial, and digital design) in the students’ first year. That year’s courses have objectives such as skill-based acquisition of and facility in the creative uses of digital and traditional media. Taught by designers, artists, and architects, these courses embed creative opportunities and design instruction and critiques into focused design projects. Because of the design component of the exercises and instruction, students call their graphics-based foundation classes “studio.” Successful implementations of both models share two traits. First, instructors and administrators must be knowledgeable in, and committed to, using digital media in the design processes and products at the beginning of design education. Second, computer graphics instruction must be embedded in design courses. Or, at the very least,

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the courses must require students to creatively apply information technology to visual-design product deliverables. Designers use graphics to communicate with themselves, colleagues, teachers or mentors, and clients.5 How and what gets communicated is often a collaboration between the designer and the media. But regardless of the media and intended audience, the work usually has a purpose. Practical students who apportion their time with great care can be inspired to learn about material they might not immediately see as directly linked to their chosen profession, if you can show them how that material makes them better designers or architects. Because they’re visually oriented, you can also convince them to perform a task if they know the end result will be a product representing their efforts. Sources abound to inspire students, impart lessons about art and design, and provide opportunities to learn or improve their image-creation skills. Furthermore, teachers can develop tasks that not only go beyond rote learning and skill acquisition in the simplest form but also broaden students’ cultural exposure, leveling the playing field for those who enter the academy with varying backgrounds. The best projects leverage our knowledge of associated disciplines. This premise isn’t restricted to computer graphics; it includes craft in physical construction (model or full-scaled), structures, and a host of other categories. Each of the two curricular models relies on realizing that the design disciplines are sufficiently complex that no one tool or computer application will optimally satisfy all requirements for a multifaceted, real project. This means that tools must be selected to fit the required task, and tasks must be carefully selected to emphasize and utilize the strengths of particular tools being used and taught.

Raster Graphics Teachers can expose architecture and design students to art through detailed analysis of carefully selected precedents and the creation of facsimiles of those works. We’ve derived successful projects from a large variety of artists, including Hiroshige, van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir (see Figure 2). Just as budding designers in the mid-twentieth century learned to draw by going to a museum or gallery to sketch the work of Old Masters, students can draw with digital media without resorting to scanning images. Analogous to work and study with traditional media, students learn powers of observation, the use of color, the in

Figure 1. The freshman architectural design studio at the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture and Design. Studio classes embed creative opportunities and design instruction and critiques into focused design projects.

fluence of brush stroke and media (watercolor, oil, woodblock print, pen and pencil, and so on), composition, and structure and organization—and they learn raster software. After also learning about file types, storage requirements, interpolation and compression, color depth, and a range of basic information about computer graphics, students become familiar with the computer as a medium to create (or at least reproduce) art. After 30 or so hours, they gain a visceral appreciation that they can create almost any art style on the computer and that they, as the artist, can maintain creative control. Through a careful selection of the paintings and artists to be studied, students can learn additional lessons such as the independent nature of artists in history (for example, van Gogh). They can also learn they can use the computer to create evocative nonphoto­ realistic images of architecture, landscape, and interiors that could, if applied appropriately, reflect the designer’s intent more than merely rendering a 3D model by accepting default parameters. Furthermore, instructors can layer projects with additional requirements that will help students’ intellectual growth—for example, writing an analytical paper or presenting research and analysis to the class. In addition, students’ newfound confidence in creating nonphotorealistic evocative images reinforces the design process’s iterative nature by increasing the likelihood that they won’t show a level of detail or accuracy inappropriate for a schematic design’s beginning stage. This also helps them avoid miscommunication with clients or IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications

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critics who, because of a false sense of specificity in the drawing, might assume an incorrect level of completion. We’ve used the same projects and software applications both in discipline-specific (for example, architecture) design studios and in general media foundation courses that deal with color theory and 2D composition.

3D Modeling and Vector Graphics

(a)

Facsimile of Utagawa Hiroshige’s The Kannon Temple at Cape Abuto in Bingo Providence. Created by Benjamin Gross

Facsimile of Claude Monet’s The Breakup of the Ice (1880) created by Mina Liba

Facsimile of Vincent Van Gogh’s The Olive Trees (1889) created by Philip Caleja

(b)

(c)

Facsimile of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Still Life: Flowers (1885) by Danielle Esmaya

(d)

Figure 2. Studying paintings and creating facsimiles as an introduction to art and paint programs: (a) Hiroshige, (b) van Gogh, (c) Monet, and (d) Renoir. (Source of the facsimiles: Benjamin Gross, Philip Caleja, Mina Liba, and Danielle Esmaya, respectively; used with permission.) 16

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Architecture and design students must study more than fine art, and they need to employ computer graphics beyond pixel-based creations and 2D imagery. (This skill, however, is useful as students seek to create maps to apply to 3D models, represent materials and designs not in default libraries, and enhance nonphotorealistic renderings that can evoke a designer’s intent.) The design of products, spaces, and buildings is largely 3D. Traditional architectural and design curricula focused on 2D representation primarily because diagrams, plans, and sections were easier to draw than accurate perspectives and faster to draw than axonometrics or plan and elevation oblique drawings. But with the advent of relatively easy-touse 3D modeling programs, which have been used in university-based architectural design studios since the mid-1980s, the absolute requirement to begin with these abstractions no longer exists. Architecture and design students can now start with physical models in the studio and create geometric physical and digital models of their work simultaneously. They see—and understand—the context of their abstractions. To avoid frustration and facilitate rather than hinder the design process, the software and traditional media must be complementary. So, for example, a polygonal geometrically based modeling program is a good match for students who want to create a subtractive abstract design project based on rectangular voids carved out of a cube (see Figure 3) or an additive aggregation of modular elements (see Figure 4). Instead of rote tutorials in which students from various backgrounds do the same exercise to learn how to use a polygonal modeling application, the assignment can be open-ended with a requirement that forces the students to learn the software application to create a successful design project. Students can do simple exercises when general nonspecific design projects are the most appropriate. For example, they can model and deconstruct an object and subsequently creatively reuse the parts to express specific design principles in an informationtechnology-intensive update of exercises that reinforce classic Bauhaus pedagogical principles. Either

Left vanishing point

Horizon

Right vanishing point

Figure 3. A subtractive 3D design project using a cube and a proportional system based on the Fibonacci sequence. Students’ designs serve as the basis for an introduction to 3D modeling and vector drawing. Deconstructed renderings of the model help students understand basic perspective and visualization principles. (Source: Benjamin Gross and Alex Djuric; used with permission.)

(a)

(b)

Figure 4. An additive 3D exercise requiring (a) abstract and (b) whimsical recombinations of deconstructed objects. (Source: Elvin Padilla and Kyle Ralli, respectively; used with permission.)

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Step 2 Stack assembled planes on top of each other and insert square columns through gaps

x2

x1

Assemble top planes

Assemble bottom planes

Step 3 Raise each plane to desired level and insert retaining pin directly below through the vertical support column precut hole

Step 4 The chair can be converted at will from an ottoman to a chair

Figure 5. By using physical and digital models, the living-cube project exposes students to issues of construction, assembly, formal systems of order, graphic communication and composition, rendering and modeling, and compositing. (Source: Jason Kurzweil; used with permission.)

way, a final product that includes descriptive and analytic images leverages a student’s desire to have something to show for his or her efforts. Descriptive images that wouldn’t seem obvious to designers working strictly with traditional media can become part of a design vocabulary. This vocabulary can then be transferred to the next project so that the skills students learn become a natural part 18

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of the design process—but only if the next design project builds directly upon previous ones. So, after additive and subtractive design projects, each dealing with different proportional systems, students can start a “real” project, such as designing a piece of furniture with specified materials, to be sold as a kit including the instructions and product advertisements (see Figure 5). They must integrate

computer graphics at the design and presentation stages and use this medium to explain to others the physical assembly of the project. This project places physical and digital media in the context of design, build, assembly, and sales.

Increased Complexity Any serious use of design context requires the broadest possible student exposure and occurs at different scales. By the end of the first semester, we have the architecture students create a habitable, freestanding structure. For example, one project required them to design a festival shelter using a specific technology (fabric and tensile structures) for an unfamiliar climate and culture (Native American) at a remote site (see Figure 6). During digital design, students also experience different types (nonrectilinear) of forms, nonuniform rational B-spline surfaces (Nurbs), and image processing and photo superimposition and collage. Context provides sources of inspiration everywhere. Designers can learn from looking at precedents in their own narrowly defined field of study or in the allied arts. The ubiquitous use of computer graphics has not only crossed disciplinary boundaries but also acted as a catalyst to blur other lines of distinction. From graphic design to furniture design, architects, interior designers, industrial designers, artists, and others perform overlapping tasks for their clients. The increased variety of university design programs simultaneously satisfies student and industry demand for increasingly focused study and allows students in one design discipline to connect with opportunities and advances in others. In this milieu, beginning students can be informed by precedents of different scales, with instructors mixing lessons in design with lessons in structure, form, order, representational graphics, lighting, and materiality. For example, architecture or interior design students might study a chair to analytically deconstruct and mine it for design principles and then apply those principles to design a restaurant or café (see Figure 7). They design the project digitally using previously learned skills. However, for this detailed small-scale project, they now include lighting, materials, and a preliminary schematic structure, all of which the digital product must represent. (They also learn the difference between ray tracing and radiosity.) Students study texture, shadows, light intensity and reflectivity, color cast, and so on, in the context of their project. The individual projects teach process and methodology, and the breadth of possibilities becomes evident in the collective presentations.

(a)

(b) South elevation

North elevation

(c) Figure 6. A student project to create a festival shelter for Chaco Canyon, New Mexico: (a) a depiction of the cloth and fabric structures, (b) a diagram of the entire site, (c) a superimposition of the design over the site. (Source: Igor Skaro; used with permission.)

When students enter a professional design program, regardless of their skill level, they want to design whatever object or space they believe is at IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications

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(a)

doesn’t matter; it could vary from residential to commercial to institutional. Whatever the particular program, it’s important to continue to expose students to new concepts while providing an opportunity early in their studies to develop various proficiencies—especially in applying computer graphics to design and presentation. Consequently, these tools will facilitate rather than hinder their progress as their projects’ complexity grows. Attractive, accessible physical contexts (such as waterfront sites along the New Jersey shore) help encourage environmental and programmatic responsibility and raise the level of expectation and aspiration for the graphic presentations. It’s reasonable to believe that students who invest much effort in a project become emotionally attached to, and proud of, their work. Growing up in an era of high graphic standards and expectations, they push themselves and each other to succeed.

Performance Criteria and Expectations (b)

After students complete the first year, they should be able to select and use the appropriate software application for a design project. By carefully designing the project, instructors can require students to use at least two different modeling programs to reinforce the concept that they should use each tool for what it does best and that design objectives are more important than using any single computer graphics application. Freshman students at NJIT experiment with both polygonal and Nurbs models, and it isn’t surprising to see them work with multiple programs open, ■■

(c) Figure 7. Interior design projects suitable for architecture and interior design students. (a) A café design using an assigned chair as a source of design principles. (b) Another instance of the same assignment. (c) A proposed bar in a New York City nightclub. The design and evaluative criteria now take into account the application of material, lighting, and color. (Source: Mina Liba, Alex Djuric, and Jessica Uhlik, respectively; used with permission.)

the core of their chosen discipline. For interior design students, this might be a complex interiorplanning project that lets them deal with space planning on multiple levels, from small-scale furniture design to wall-covering design. For architecture students, it’s a free-standing building (see Figure 8). The building’s particular purpose 20

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creating an object in one program for import into another program, working on that object in a paint program, modifying it in an image-processing application, and compositing it in yet another application to use in a presentation.

A systems approach to design is consistent with the idea of using different applications for different purposes and merging, transferring, and adapting files as necessary to serve the design. This also makes the additional layering of buildinginformation-modeling applications easier. The final submission’s appearance should be intentional rather than be determined by an application’s defaults or proclivities. The many tasks that advanced students face—from a detailed investigation of sustainable building materials, to structural design, to construction or man-

Figure 8. A freestanding-building design in a physical context requiring two different modeling applications and including material description and site development. (Source: Karen Cilento; used with permission.)

ufacturing processes—means that the first year will include much preparatory work. Although teachers can’t introduce all computer graphics issues, they can expect that students will develop facility with many of the applications they use. Furthermore, a flexible attitude toward using and changing applications will help them continue to develop.

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here are more computer graphics concepts and skills to be learned than we can present in the first year. Whereas some students might, out of personal interest, move forward faster, most fill any available time working on design projects. Yet skill-building always has been, and remains, an important task for beginning students. Exposure to a variety of issues, skill-building, introduction to studio culture, and the development of comfort with iterative processes in both design and image creation are important objectives in the beginning of a design program. When computer graphics is taught in the context of other disciplines, the timetable inevitably stretches. Furthermore, computer graphics is developing more rapidly than the techniques available with traditional media have. Changes in materials and media that used to span multiple decades are now collapsed into years or even months. New applications and new versions of existing applications demand continuous learning throughout the academic program. Teaching and learning skills don’t end in the first or second year. At NJIT, building information modeling is introduced in the first year, but its power isn’t unleashed without a parallel understanding of the structure and materials used in construction. Industrial designers’ solid-modeling tools don’t make complete sense until students understand manufacturing processes. Also, although students might begin

to learn how to model a human figure, study and observation of expression are needed to effectively communicate emotion. Every design discipline requires additional study of computer graphics after the initial exposure, and the media used during design can and do affect the nature of the design. Nevertheless, there are pedagogical and expedient reasons to teach computer graphics in the context of the design environment relevant to the profession using the tools. Although the specific examples I’ve previously described pertain to beginning students, the processes and the integrated nature of the pedagogy persist throughout the curriculum.

References 1. J. Dewey, Art as Experience, Berkeley Publishing Group, 1934, p. 3. 2. J. Dewey, Experience and Education, Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster, 1938. 3. E. Labinowicz, The Piaget Primer: Thinking, Learning, Teaching, Addison Wesley, 1980. 4. W. Crain, Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1992, p. 14. 5. G. Goldman, Architectural Graphics: Traditional and Digital Communication, Prentice Hall/Pearson Education, 1997, p. 2. Glenn Goldman is a professor of architecture, the founding director of the School of Art + Design, and the director of the Imaging Laboratory at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Contact him at [email protected]. Contact department editors Gitta Domik at domik@ uni-paderborn.de and Scott Owen at [email protected]. Selected CS articles and columns are also available for free at http://ComputingNow.computer.org. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications

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Digital media and the beginning designer.

Use and creation of computer graphics can be effectively taught to beginning design students in the context of discipline-specific design projects. In...
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