• LO1 Introduction to HTML5 / CSS.
• LO2 Understand the role of copyright, remix culture, and the social graph.
• LO3 Use free, open-source, and demo software to expand software literacy.
• LO4 Practice critical thinking skills to address digital art and network cultures.
• LO5 Use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to generate rasterized and vector images for web and print.
• LO6 Practice writing skills to articulate the meaning and importance of digital art and networked cultures.
• LO7 Develop a working understanding of software culture, open-source, and emergent social media
  with an emphasis on digital publics in the 21st century.

The first major Photoshop assignment, paired with a session on the ethics of remixing. Before touching the software, we spent time discussing how digital artists navigate existing imagery — copyright, fair use, attribution, and what it means to remix responsibly as someone entering the field. Students then built collages from found and appropriated sources, putting those questions into practice. The results reflect a wide range of instincts, aesthetics, and first encounters with both the tool and the conversation around it.

Students designed original logos for a fictional brand or personal identity of their choosing. The assignment introduced vector thinking, typographic hierarchy, and the fundamentals of mark-making in Illustrator. Students submitted multiple iterations — final marks shown here range from wordmarks to abstract symbols, reflecting each student's individual direction and design instincts.

Students built visual research boards to establish the aesthetic direction of their ongoing brand project. The moodboard assignment asked students to synthesize reference imagery, color, texture, and type into a single cohesive composition — translating instinct into a communicable visual language. Each board reflects an early-stage design thinking process and serves as a foundation for all subsequent work.

Students produced looping animated GIFs using Photoshop's timeline and frame animation tools. The assignment focused on timing, rhythm, and the expressive potential of the loop as a format — from subtle motion to full scene animation. GIFs were designed to function as standalone pieces and as shareable digital objects.

Working within a strict 500×500 pixel canvas and a limited color palette, students created original pixel art compositions in Photoshop. The constraint-based format pushed students to think about economy of mark — every pixel deliberate. Subject matter was open, and the results range from character design to abstract pattern to personal iconography.

Students wrote image prompts for each other, then used AI image generation tools to interpret and respond to the prompts they received. The resulting images were then brought into Illustrator for vectorization and refinement. The assignment raised questions about authorship, intent, and the gap between language and image — and what it means to make something from someone else's words.