Class Is Wrapped (10 Years Down)

Last night was the final critique for the Cooper Union class I teach, "Design In Motion." It wrapped pretty well, all things considered. This was my 10th year teaching, which really astounds me, since I have only been OUT of Cooper for 10 years. There has not been a September that I have not gone back to school since I was 3 years old. All the years at Cooper, the course curriculum has always been the same, but this year I gave them something new, which seemed to have a pretty good success rate. Their enthusiasm for the project, and the field of Motion Graphics in general was very high, which translated pretty well into the work, and most importantly, into their work ethic.

The assignment was to "Persuade. Change. Influence." Pick a cause. Anything. Political, sarcastic, comedic, social, anything you think you will be interested in for an entire semester. Then create 3 x promotional "spots" that advocate your cause, or change someone's mind or convince them of your cause. After all, what else IS a 30 second commercial other than someone trying to convice the viewer of something. Use the airwaves to get a message out that wouldn't normally be able to connect with a mass public.

The student solutions were great. We had a person champion (quite seriously) the plight of the oppression of Left Handed people in our society. We had a campaign maligning and criticizing the suburbs and sprawl. There were public service announcements about unwritten rules of courtesy for New York City (Don't walk four-side-by-side down the street). Cautionary spots about the dangers of Credit Cards. And my personal favorite, a propaganda campaign to convince people to move to Mars ("Red Is The New Green!")

Thanks to Joseph for being a terrific guest critic (especially on such short notice), and of course to Emily (who kicks butt as always with the final crit!) Sorry that Scott couldn't make it, but there's always next year! And thanks to They Might Be Giants, without whom the 10 years running of the 1-week assignments just wouldn't be the same!

After a Spring Semester hiatus,, I will return again in the fall, for another September spent in the world of academia. Here's to 10 more.