Last week, the Department of Graphic Design hosted Asst. Prof. Saied Farisi, a member of the American Institute of Graphic Design, the Graphic Artists Guild and the Independent Filmmaker Project, for a lecture and workshop on the topic of “Art in Motion” for the GRA 401 Graphic Design Studio class.
Currently a faculty member at Chapman University, Asst. Prof. Farisi has also taught at a number of other institutions, including Nabi Akram University, San Diego State University, California State University, Zayed University and Virginia Commonwealth University. His primary research interests span the fields of visual and verbal communication; he is particularly interested in studying how verbal syntax impacts the visual arts, and how knowledge of such structures can help solve design and communication problems in order to enable effective cross-cultural communication.
In his lecture, Asst. Prof. Farisi discussed the most recent developments in the field of motion graphics and animation. Some of the main topics covered during the workshop were creativity in action, visual vocabularies, narratology and visible thoughts. The students were then introduced to animation software and shown how to use it in creative ways.