Class Ideas

The deadline for KCDC February classes approaches, on December 5th (propose a class!). I have more class ideas than I can teach:

• Material Typography, in which students make type using unconventional materials, grappling with unexpected affordances and limitations. A multi-part, critique based class in which students experiment on their own time. (“This class is not intended to have any immediate professional value, but the insights that it offers might reignite a flagging love of type or suggest new and unexpected ways of making. No particular software expertise is required or necessary. Students should have some practical knowledge of typography or design.”)
• A Landscape History Tour of the Port of Baltimore, conducted in a small convoy of cars.
• A similar field-study visit to Frederick, Maryland, ending with a stop at Family Meal to compare notes.
• A visit to New York or Philadelphia, built around a larger theme, probably about industry and planning history.
• An excursion to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
• Purposeful Making, examining the ethical and environmental considerations behind design in a world of rapid prototyping. (“Does this object need to exist? Will it generate some good? Will it do harm?”)
• Local Stories: Students create tiny pamphlets that guide people through a micro-level tour of a place. Exchange guides. Compile guides into a series.
• The Liberation of Paris, Seen on Film: Watch Is Paris Burning (the 1966 René Clément film, not Paris Is Burning, which is totally different). Compare the film with more modern scholarship. Discuss the events of August 1944, focusing on the tension between different groups within the Resistance and the Free French and on how the Liberation helped shape a particular future for postwar France.

There are also classes that I can’t teach, but would like someone else to teach:

• Arabic typography
• Something involving Field Papers
• A fiction writing workshop from prompts
• Improv
• Whiskey and gin cocktails
• OpenStreetMap, either a practical class or a critical one
• Very basic French