Here I Go Again On My Own: The Planning of Two Independent Studies

This semester, I have the pleasure of creating two courses just for myself. I needed two art studio courses to finish off my requirements for the BFA in Graphic Design, but nothing at this stage really appealed to me. I did, however, desire more practice and experimentation in the field of Graphic Design--so I took matters into my own hands and designed two Independent Studies.

I highly recommend you try an "Indy Study" (as I like to call them) during your time in college. Sure you have to wade through a ton of paperwork and signatures to actually get them approved, but once you have you can rest knowing that you've created a course that you will actually appreciate. You must appreciate it, it is based off of your own ideas, your own need to explore a subject in greater detail. The fields of Art and English really lend themselves to the Indy Study, but I'm fairly sure that you could find something to study in any area. These courses do more than just teach you about a specific area of interest, they also teach you how to manage your time to meet goals.

So for my last semester, I created two fairly expansive Indy Studies. The first is called "Web Multimedia Integration" and the second is "Political Campaign Advertising."

Web Multimedia Integration is a fancy way for me to say "learn more about Dreamweaver and Flash." But I don't want to sell the study short, because while I will be using those two design programs pretty extensively, there is a little more (after all, it's called "multi-media" for a reason). I will also be doing a good deal of video editing in Apple iMovie. The school currently, as far as I have been told, doesn't have a registered version of Final Cut, so iMovie will have to do. Basically, I plan to design a fairly expansive website in Dreamweaver, with a lot of Flash elements weaved into the design. Then I will hopefully produce a full-length video project to boot, and feature a number of clips on this new website.

Not surprisingly, I plan to make the new website for my radio show. It's about time I give the show a proper website, instead of a Blogger page, and really dig into interactivity and information about the show. Hopefully the website will have features like an animated character bio page, a crazy adventure timeline, a podcast player, and eventually some video clips from our live performances. All the while I will be advancing my current understanding of Flash and Dreamweaver into a more professional realm.

The second study, Political Campaign Advertising, was inspired because of my recent internships and design work from the previous election. I believe there are theories and techniques to good political design that go beyond "red, white and blue" and "bald eagles." So I will be studying examples of previous campaigns, critiquing the designs of both winners and losers, on both the national and local levels. My primary text is a book called Packaging the President by Kathleen Jamieson. The book covers the political ad campaigns of every presidential campaign from Eisenhower to Clinton (the latest edition stops at the '92 election). I haven't had a chance to really jump into it yet, but the book seems to cover everything from polling to radio commercials and print advertising; it covers the messages sent by the candidates as well as they way they were perceived by the American public.

But instead of just re-designing some Bush/Cheney materials, I'm going to take things a little further. I will be creating two candidates from scratch (I haven't decided yet what office they are running for), and they will be facing against each other. So each project will center around one or the other in this little mock election. I did a sort of dry-run of this idea with the Dodge Intrepid radio show--where I staged an election for mayor of Aliquippa in 1940. This project will be similar to that, only a bit more serious. Each candidate will have his own logo and design style. Then I will create direct mail pieces, billboards, websites etc. In the end, I'll create a television commercial for one of the candidates--using either Flash or iMovie.

I'm very excited about working on both of these Indy Studies. They are providing me with a chance to get some more experience in the design field and hopefully some good stuff for my senior show.