HUM 182 - Digital App-Music, Art & Theatre

2. Learn the types of hardware that these professionals use and how each type works and is set up.

3. Learn the essentials of acquiring (or sampling) sounds and images of personal art works and publishing that work in a digital portfolio.

4. Create works of art using both the hardware and the software available to creative professionals.

5. Understand and use knowledge about file types and when, how, and why each is used.

6. Acquire and apply the vocabulary that is used in the fine arts.

7. Demonstrate personal accountability through active and consistent class participation.

Course Objectives:

Digital Hardware and Software used in the Fine Arts: An Overview
• Gain an understanding of what graphic communication is and the present status of the profession.
• Acquire an understanding of sound and its expression in digital media today.
• Acquire a working knowledge of the design process.
• Demonstrate the distinction between raster and vector graphics.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the distinction between input and output devices.
• Acquire a basic operational knowledge of the hardware, operating system, and network systems we will work with in the course.
• Learn the basic file operations and desktop metaphor of select OS platforms.
• Become familiar with, and apply, Paul Rand’s “play principle.”
• Demonstrate a knowledge of some vocabulary that will be used in an ongoing basis, specifically: design, MIDI, graphic, thumbnail, roughs, composites, comprehensives, camera-ready, desktop, mechanicals, operating system, application menu, network, file, folder, application, document, open, close, window.

File Types, Uses, and Size: A Rationale
• Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of the invention of key technologies, including: the origin of printing, the invention of paper,

Gutenberg’s movable type, the lithographic process, and the role the computer plays in contemporary written, aural, and visual communication.
• Demonstrate an understanding of key historical movements, schools, and people who pushed the technology envelope in creating artworks, graphic design and digitally based music and multimedia.

Productivity Software-Yes, You Do Need to Know this Stuff
• Learn some of the most fundamental functions Office software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access and how contemporary artists, musicians, actors, and others use this type of software and why.

Scanners, Drawing Tablets, Digital Cameras, Synthesizers and Other Input Techniques and Hardware
• Learn what types of input devices are available and are used under what conditions. Understand the essentials so that when the student needs to move a file from one type of equipment to another, they can do so.

Printers and Other Output Devices: Types, Technologies, and Uses
• Acquire and demonstrate an understanding of basic output hardware (computer, print, video, film, sound, multimedia).
• Understand the types of interfaces of the above and the cables used to connect any two devices.

Software
• Learn and demonstrate an understanding of vector-based software and when, how, and why it is used.
• Demonstrate a working understanding of raster-based software and when, why, and how it is used by artists.
• Learn and demonstrate when, how, and why artists use layout and notation software.
• Acquire and apply an understanding of multimedia software and under which circumstances it is used.
• Learn and demonstrate how to author DVDs and CDs using the appropriate hardware and software.

Copy Machines and other Analog Techniques
• Acquire and demonstrate a basic understanding of analog devices and how these can be applied to further an artist’s tool set.

The Humanities (Fine Arts): A Web Presence
• Students will learn the bare necessities of web design and will design a personal “splash page.”

Creating a Digital Portfolio
• Students will synthesize learned material for this course and will create a digital portfolio to demonstrate that understanding.