1 Jan 12
Course introduction
2 Jan 19
MLK day
3 Jan 26
identity crisis
+ Stuart Hall, “Who Needs ‘Identity’?” (1997)
+ Ruben Pater, “The Designer as Brander” from CAPS LOCK (2021)
4 Feb 2
corporate identity systems
+ John Harwood, “Eliot Noyes, Paul Rand, and the Beginnings of the IBM Design Program” from The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design (2016). pp 37–57
+ When TV Logos were Physical Objects
+ Karl Gerstner, “Programme as Logic” from Designing Programmes (1964)
+ Philip B. Meggs, “Corporate Identity and Visual Systems” from A History of Graphic Design (1983, 1998)
choose case study
5 Feb 9
myth, language, nationality
+ Roland Barthes, “Myth as a semiological system,” from Mythologies (1957)
+ Benedict Anderson, from Imaginary Communities (1983)
+ Franz Fanon, from “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952)
+ Edward Said, from Orientalism (1978)
6 Feb 16
political complications of corporate identity systems
+ Olympics 68
+ Alex Negrelli, from Kommando Ott Aicher (2012)
+ Metahaven, Sealand
project proposal due
7 Feb 23
postmodern identity 1
+ Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (1992)
+ Michael Warner, from Counterpublics (2002)
+ Sanford Kwinter, “The Gay Science (What is Life?)” (2005)
+ Federico Pérez Villoro and Chris Hamomoto, “Post-Identity Design: Brands, Politics, and Technological Instability” (2017)
8 March 2
identity politics
+ The Combahee River Collective, The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)
+ Asad Haider, from Mistaken Identity (2018)
+ Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Until Black Women Are Free, None of Us Will Be Free” (2020)
identity sketch review
9 March 9
gender critique
+ Judith Butler, from Gender Trouble (1990)
+ Paul B. Preciado, “The Pharmacopornographic Era” from Testo Junkie (2008/2013)
10 March 16
Race, Gender, Media
+ Legacy Russell, from Black Meme (2024)
+ DeForrest Brown, from Asssembling a Black Counter Culture (2022)
+ Adrian Wohlleben, “Memes without End” (2021)
+ Kodwo Eshun, “Further Thoughts on Afrofuturism” (2003)
identity sketch review
11 March 23
SPRING BREAK
12 March 30
composition
+ Kristen Ross, “Composition”
+ Hugh Farrell, “Strategy of Composition”
13 April 6
no class (Basel workshop)
14 April 13
15 April 20
16 April 27
Final identity presentations