Syllabus for Information Aesthetics at UIC School of Art and Design
"This studio course investigates the database as cultural form (Manovich, 2001), in the context of data visualization, digital fabrication, and computational aesthetics. Traditionally viewed as a tool for scientific reasoning and data exploration, information visualization has emerged as an artistic practice, propelled by the democratization of data sources and the advancement of computer graphics. The massive amount of data collected and disseminated online constitutes the basis for this course. Participants will be introduced to the basic skills for developing creative projects in two-, three-, and four dimensions, such as indexes, graphs, prints, digitally fabricated objects and maps. Students will also become familiar with the a basic vocabulary to co-create and collaborate with professionals in future contexts.
The course focuses on current standards for web development and mobile applications, including HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, PHP, MySQL, and Processing(.js). Fundamentals in XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and programming are beneficial, but not required. Throughout the course, students are asked to utilize the class blog to collect and share resources, collaboratively collecting interesting data sources towards a final project. A series of presentations, screenings, readings, and discussions will expose students to creative projects and artworks in the context of information visualization. Each student selects a research topic followed by an in-class research presentation (see schedule). Participants will also present their work during class critiques and interdisciplinary workshops to receive qualitative feedback from the instructor(s) and the class."
(Daniel Sauter, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Art and Design, Fall 2011)
Fig.1 Matt Wizinsky (2011). "Chicago unDensity", University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The 960 Grid System: streamlining the web development workflow
"The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels. There are two variants: 12 and 16 columns, which can be used separately or in tandem."
(Nathan Smith, 2010)
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Matthew UnderwoodSHARE
Microsoft's Expression Web SuperPreview
"We built SuperPreview to simplify the process of testing and debugging layout issues across different web browsers and platforms. You can view your pages in multiple browsers simultaneously or view how a page renders in a browser and compare it to a comp or mock-up image of a page.
...
SuperPreview will be included as part of a future version of Expression Web. The final feature set and its availability have not been announced. The SuperPreview demo shown at the MIX09 conference was a technology preview and not a product announcement. However, because we'd like to get feedback on this technology and on its implementation, we have announced a beta version of SuperPreview for Internet Explorer. This free download will allow you to compare renderings of IE6 with whatever other version of IE you have installed on your machine. If you have installed IE8, you'll be able to compare IE6, IE8 and IE8 running in IE7 compatibility mode, side-by-side. The final 'shipping' version of SuperPreview for Internet Explorer will continue to be available for free. The Expression Web team hopes that it will be useful in helping to make the process of developing web pages for IE (and in general), faster and easier."
(Microsoft, 2009)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Creative Resource (students) on Twitter
"Creative resource for Media and Multimedia students."
(various)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Interactive CSS Box Model Demo
"This is my Basic CSS Box Model Demo, inspired by the good Jon Hicks."
(Douglas Livingstone)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
