MART 385: Coding for Designers & Artists
Syllabus (get .pdf )

Introduction

There is a clear need for an alternative approach in teaching the methods and practices of software programming for students whose focus is in the disciplines of visual arts and design. Today’s job marketplace calls for individuals who can not only create visuals, such as 3D characters, and designs, like web sites, but also know the intricacies of programming those visuals to behave interactively through programming. While they may not be programming themselves, the chances are high that they will be working with programmers, and having a working knowledge of what can and can not be done with programming and the relative complexity of programming projects is an important job skill. A recent review of the first ten jobs listed for Web Designers on indeed.com showed seven required experience in programming, and they all involved working with a team of one or more programmers.

Visual Design and Art students are predisposed to learning by seeing. While computer programming courses offered through Computer Information Science and Engineering departments cover the relevant skills in writing software applications, they are not targeted for visual learners. As described in the Program Learning Outcomes for the Cañada Community College Computer Science department, they are educating students in how to “apply knowledge of math, science, and computer science to identify, formulate and solve computer science problems,” and are specifically targeted with lower division courses for a Bachelor of Science degree.

Art and design students are usually not trying to earn a Science degree. Many find the prospect of taking science courses intimidating. As John Maeda, Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, believes “…hybrids (workers) that can fluidly cross the chasm between technology and the arts are mutations in the academic system.” The programming languages covered in the Computer Science department are Assembly Language, C++, and Java, where the industry standard for programming visuals and interactivity on the Web are JavaScript, JQuery, and HTML5.

This course is in the Business, Design, & Workforce division and is designed to address the needs of visual designers and artists and work within their visually-oriented view of the world and their corresponding learning style.

The course is built around the foundational work developed by Casey Reas, professor in the Department of Design Media Arts at UCLA and a graduate of the MIT Media Laboratory, and Ben Fry, a designer, programmer, and author with a doctoral degree from MIT Media Laboratory. Together, they developed a specialized open-source programming language called Processing. It is a simple language that excels at programming drawings, animation, and interactivity. The emphasis is on quickly creating functional projects and using them to learn core programming concepts one step at a time, while providing encouragement and motivation with immediate visual feedback. According to Reas' and Fry’s textbook on Processing:

Processing makes it possible to introduce software concepts in the context of the arts and also to open arts concepts to a more technical audience. Because the Processing syntax is derived from widely used programming languages, it’s a good base for continued learning. Skills learned with Processing enable people to learn other programming languages suitable for different contexts including web development, computer graphics, and electronics.

Our version of the course also strongly references real-world applications of interactivity. We will incorporate JavaScript, and JQuery, along with Processing, using examples of interactive code on the Web and on Mobile devices.

Target Students

Students in the Certificate Programs, Associate of Arts Programs, and Transfer Programs for:

• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Multimedia Art & Technology
• 3D Animation & Videogame Art
• Interdisciplinary Studies with Emphasis in Arts & Humanities

Career Opportunities

Many of todays technology sector jobs call for a combined set of skills, which include both visual design and programming. These include, but are not limited to:

• Web Developer/Designer
• Interactive Developer/Designer
• Web Master
• Graphic Designer
• Video Game Artist
• User Experience Designer (UIX)
• App Designer

Strategic Learning Objectives (SLOs)

After taking this course, students should be able to:

• Write basic code that takes to user input and outputs changes in status
• Predict and manage the complexity of coding projects
• Work with coding teams to create valuable user experiences
• Have a working knowledge of the basics of programming, including:
• Drawing objects
• Creating and manipulating variables
• Responding to inputs
• Working with different media types, like images, fonts, and shapes
• Animating objects
• Creating functions
• Working with classes and objects
• Creating and manipulating with arrays
• Translating Processing code into other languages, including:
• JavaScript and JQuery
• Understand coding best practices, such as naming, commenting, and style
• Understand data types and their appropriate usage
• Understand sequence of operations in code
• Understand the scope of variables

Course Outline

Required Materials

Storage

• Removable storage (USB Jump Drives: 512MB at least) or access to Cloud Storage for storing your assignments and backing them up

Administration

Grading

Grading Scale

Grading Components

Guidelines for a High Grade (B+ or higher)

• Attend all classes and avoid being late or leaving early
• Participate in critiques and volunteer constructive criticism to other student's work
• Successfully incorporate skills and disciplines acquired from earlier projects into later projects
• Neatness counts! Turn in clean, well-presented work
• Be resourceful, be creative and when in doubt, ask

Rules

• Homework is Pass/Fail, but failing any given piece of homework will reduce your final grade by one step, so if you had been getting an A based on your assignments, you’d be knocked down to an A-.
• Homework has proposed due dates, but is not ultimately due until the end of the semester. It is suggested that you keep up with the due dates so you don’t fall behind.
• A few minutes will be available at the beginning of class to upload your assignment, but all assignments are due at the beginning of class on the assignment's due date. Don't count on having time to work on the assignment on the day of the crit.
• Late assignments are lowered by one full grade
• Unless otherwise arranged, assignments will not be accepted after the beginning of the next class session after it's due
• Attendance at the final is required
• Plagiarized work will be immediately failed
• Creativity and neatness count!

Misc.

• There are locations on campus for email and surfing the web. Don’t do these things during lectures/demonstrations/critiques.
• Please consult your class schedule for any drop class information and CR/NC grading policies as this is the responsibility of the student.
• Sometimes student works will be used by Cañada College for educational purposes and to promote the program or college or in galleries or shows or other forums. It is important to always include your name in your file so proper attribution can be given. Unnamed or improperly named files may be attributed to ‘Anonymous’. To ‘opt out’, submit a request in writing at the any time during the semester.

Required Text

Getting Started with Processing
Casey Reas, Ben Fry
Second Edition, 2015
Maker Media
ISBN-13: 978-1457187087
ISBN-10: 1457187086
Free pdf of earlier edition is OK to use

Recommended Text

Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists
The MIT Press
Second edition
ISBN-13: 978-0262028288
ISBN-10: 9780262028288

Other Useful Texts

Learning Processing: A Beginner’s Guide to Programming Images, Animation, and Interaction
Daniel Shiffman
2008 (Second edition soon to be released)
Morgan Kaufmann Publishing, Burlington, MA
ISBN: 978-0123736024

Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art 2
Ira Greenberg
2013
friendsofED, New York, NY
ISBN: 978-1430244646

Processing for Visual Artists: How to Create Expressive Images and Interactive Art
Andrew Glassier
2010
A K Peters/CRC Press, Boka Raton, FL
ISBN: 978-1568817163

Projects

Each project has two components: A robot, which is created by copying code from the textbook, and an associated variation on the concepts the robot demonstrates.

• Project 1: Build A Robot
• Use Processing’s drawing functions to create a robot. Includes the use of fill(), stroke(), line(), ellipse(), and rect(). This robot will be used in other projects. Then use the same functions to recreate a provided image.
• Project 2: Move Your Robot
• Modify the robot from Project 1 and make it move. Add an image for the background.
• Project 3: Combo Robot
• Create three robots from a single function. Add control buttons and sounds.

Exercises

One exercise, but possibly more. Create a square and position and size it with Processing code.