Related Information
Contact:
800.345.SFAI
Contact:
800.345.SFAI
Design and Technology
In shaping our everyday life, design and technology play a dominant role. At SFAI, the Design+Technology curriculum challenges students to use the tools of design to explore how design functions and why our designed world reflects the larger social transformations taking place today. SFAI students use the visual language of design and interactive technology to achieve conceptual goals that contribute productively to the global media cultures of advertising, entertainment, gaming, and fashion. Student projects investigate the influence of design and use the tools of design to intervene in everyday life.
Through courses like Digital Literacy: Image, Internet, Presentation; History of Reproducibility; Designing a New Skin: Reshaping the Human Form; and Activating Objects, students explore the intellectual divisions between art and design, their affiliation, and the many ways that artists and designers collaborate to construct everyday life. An art education should go hand in hand with, and contribute to, a critical dialogue with innovative graphic design and typography, motion graphics, narrative film, experimental video, and network art.
Students also may choose a technology track within the Design+Technology department. In this track, students design and customize technology for individual and collaborative interactive art and design. Skills courses are offered in digital audio, video, photography, animation, compositing, and illustration that support the building of technology projects. In this track, technical skills and the visibility of process are viewed as constructive, obvious, and accessible aspects of the work. Typical courses offered in the technology track are: Electricity and Electronics for Artists; 3D Modeling, Texturing, and Animation; and Digital Sound Objects.
Because the SFAI Centers for Interdisciplinary Study intersect research and practice with everyday life, Design+Technology students develop strong connections with the Centers. For example, students who work within the Center for Art+Science and the Center for Media Culture display and publish design and technology projects with the Exploratorium, an art and science museum. Long an important focal point for technology research and development, the Bay Area also offers students additional opportunities through internships and independent study to enhance their educational experience.
Facilities
The Digital studios support Macintosh OS X, with over 40 MAC G5s, media converters, full suites of multi-media software, a library of reference materials, VHS and Mini DV recording decks, projectors, sound production equipment, and scanners. The Imaging Studio has two Epson Pro Stylus 7600s, a Stylus 3000, Stylus 4000, and a Stylus 9600 that prints up to 44 inches; a Polaroid ProPalette for recording digital images on film; a color laser printer, and flatbed scanners. And in the technology project area, you have access to Making Things Modules.
Other Resources
The Bay Area has renowned resources that enable you to mentor with artists and designers who are affiliated with companies such as Intel Corporation, Apple, Bay Area Video Coalition, KQED Public Radio and Television, Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar, The Jean Shelton Actors Lab, and others. Through SFAI’s Design+Technology Salon Series you can engage in dialogues with practitioners that lead to further collaboration.
In shaping our everyday life, design and technology play a dominant role. At SFAI, the Design+Technology curriculum challenges students to use the tools of design to explore how design functions and why our designed world reflects the larger social transformations taking place today. SFAI students use the visual language of design and interactive technology to achieve conceptual goals that contribute productively to the global media cultures of advertising, entertainment, gaming, and fashion. Student projects investigate the influence of design and use the tools of design to intervene in everyday life.
Through courses like Digital Literacy: Image, Internet, Presentation; History of Reproducibility; Designing a New Skin: Reshaping the Human Form; and Activating Objects, students explore the intellectual divisions between art and design, their affiliation, and the many ways that artists and designers collaborate to construct everyday life. An art education should go hand in hand with, and contribute to, a critical dialogue with innovative graphic design and typography, motion graphics, narrative film, experimental video, and network art.
Students also may choose a technology track within the Design+Technology department. In this track, students design and customize technology for individual and collaborative interactive art and design. Skills courses are offered in digital audio, video, photography, animation, compositing, and illustration that support the building of technology projects. In this track, technical skills and the visibility of process are viewed as constructive, obvious, and accessible aspects of the work. Typical courses offered in the technology track are: Electricity and Electronics for Artists; 3D Modeling, Texturing, and Animation; and Digital Sound Objects.
Because the SFAI Centers for Interdisciplinary Study intersect research and practice with everyday life, Design+Technology students develop strong connections with the Centers. For example, students who work within the Center for Art+Science and the Center for Media Culture display and publish design and technology projects with the Exploratorium, an art and science museum. Long an important focal point for technology research and development, the Bay Area also offers students additional opportunities through internships and independent study to enhance their educational experience.
Facilities
The Digital studios support Macintosh OS X, with over 40 MAC G5s, media converters, full suites of multi-media software, a library of reference materials, VHS and Mini DV recording decks, projectors, sound production equipment, and scanners. The Imaging Studio has two Epson Pro Stylus 7600s, a Stylus 3000, Stylus 4000, and a Stylus 9600 that prints up to 44 inches; a Polaroid ProPalette for recording digital images on film; a color laser printer, and flatbed scanners. And in the technology project area, you have access to Making Things Modules.
Other Resources
The Bay Area has renowned resources that enable you to mentor with artists and designers who are affiliated with companies such as Intel Corporation, Apple, Bay Area Video Coalition, KQED Public Radio and Television, Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar, The Jean Shelton Actors Lab, and others. Through SFAI’s Design+Technology Salon Series you can engage in dialogues with practitioners that lead to further collaboration.
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