Our Syllabus

Typography & Interaction

2024 – 2025

The New School, Parsons, MPS CD
PMCD 5001, CRN 4253 / 9023
63 Fifth Ave, Room 304 
Fridays, 4–6:40pm

Course Description #

Typography & Interaction is a year-long course, divided into two classes, which will provide a rigorous foundation of typographic and interaction principles in the context of digital design. Over both classes, students will acquire and hone the skills they need for success in the field of interactive design.

This first semester will focus on a mastery of type and layout concepts on the web.

Typography is the infrastructure of communication in nearly any visual medium. It provides the very first shape and form to written content, and as designers, it is our responsibility to do this with intention and care. Whether towards goals of expression itself or in the service of ideas, the designer must understand type to use it successfully. In this way, we are stewards of meaning.

Digital design, the web in particular, is inextricably linked with typography—from the very letters of code at its base to the words in arrangement we see on a screen. Type, thus, is the scaffolding in which all interaction design first rises. The very shape of the web, in its layouts, grid systems, and patterns—and its various technologies—all exist in the service of type, at their root. They provide the tools with which we can breathe a form and different, digital life into that meaning.

In this class, students will learn intermediate and advanced methods in typography and layout as they concern interactive design. We will use web technologies as the lens to examine this subject—introducing the foundational, front-end languages of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to achieve our designs. Students will understand the specific challenges of type in this medium, but also how it offers unique and particular forms to us as designers. They will learn the common tools and paradigms with which we practice, while developing their own visual, design vocabulary and critical understanding.

Learning Outcomes #

By the end of this semester, students will:

Course Outline #

The course is structured into thematic units, each bookended by readings on the subject and a project that will demonstrate the material:

Unit 1: Type and the Web #

Weeks 1–6 #

We will focus on reviewing the core principles of typography, and introduce the web and its base technologies. Students will learn about HTML, semantic DOM, basic CSS, as well as type hierarchy and the use of custom typefaces for the web.

Readings #

Project 1: Manuscript #

The unit ends with Project 1, Manuscript, which students will present on October 4.

Students will choose a seminal design text from readings.design, read and respond to it, and typeset their selection and reply together as a web page. Other texts are also allowed on a case-by-case basis.

We’ll be looking for the quality of responses, appropriate type selection and hierarchy, semantic HTML, and basic CSS.

Unit 2: There Is No Perfect Layout #

Weeks 7–10 #

Students will learn how to design and implement more complex, flexible layouts, while collaborating closely with a classmate. We’ll introduce responsive design, media query CSS, and advanced web type techniques.

Readings #

Project 2: Spread #

This unit concludes with Project 2, Spread, which students will present on November 1.

Students will work in pairs, with a new text from those selected by the class in Manuscript. Each duo will sketch collaboratively and then implement a new expression together, via pair programming. The final web page will be responsive for mobile, desktop, and print layouts.

Here we’re looking for successful design and development collaboration, box-model layout design, and use of responsive media queries.

Unit 3: Typography As Interface #

Weeks 11–15 #

In our final unit, we will focus on creating advanced, multi-page layouts with grid systems, prototyping their flows, and exploring typography’s usage as interface elements for navigating a website.

Readings #

Project 3: Binding #

This unit, and the first semester, will culminate with Project 3, Binding, which will be presented in class on December 6.

Students will assemble a collection of texts from Spread, combined with their original selection, into a “book.” The book will be a multi-page website with a homepage (cover), navigation (table of contents), individual pages for each text, and an introduction (colophon)—with consistent styles applied across all pages.

We want to see effective multi-page design and navigation, advanced layouts (flexbox, grid), consistency across the pages and content, and polish/nuance.

Evaluation Criteria #

Grade Calculation #
Engagement 20%
Reading Responses 10%
Exercises and Milestones 10%
Project 1: Manuscript 10%
Project 2: Spread 20%
Project 3: Binding 30%

Materials and Supplies #

In the open tradition of the early web, the only materials truly required are a computer, a browser, a text editor, and an internet connection. The specifics of these are open to the student’s individual preferences and practices. We will do our best to accommodate everyone and will make recommendations, when needed.

In class, we will demonstrate using Figma for visual design and sketching, Visual Studio Code for programming, and GitHub / GitHub Desktop for version control and project hosting. All of these products are available for free, or offer free education licenses to New School emails.

We will use the following tools to organize our class:

Class Policies #

Our Community #

This agreement is intended to help us create and maintain a safe, empathetic, and productive space for our course. It can be revised and modified, with all of our input, over the year:

  • The class should feel comfortable asking the instructors anything—nothing is too trivial, or embarrassing, or off-topic. Tangents are good. Students can ask us via Slack, if they would like to remain anonymous.

  • Classmates should use our preferred names and pronouns.

  • When presenting, students will “have the floor” while they take us through their work. This means everyone else will be quiet, we’ll close our laptops, and give our full attention to the person showing their work.

  • We will all engage meaningfully with presented work and try to give constructive feedback (no fluff).

  • Fall semester, we’re not going to copy/paste any of our code. We’ll talk about appropriately using Stack Overflow and large language models (“artificial intelligence”) in the Spring.

  • We will have a short break, roughly halfway through the class.

Inclusion #

Our intent is to respect and give forum to a range of perspectives and backgrounds, including culture, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, and age. In instances where we are personally not qualified to speak from a specific perspective, students are encouraged to explore this area themselves. And please let us know if there are ways that the course can better serve these goals.

Office Hours #

We will have limited availability outside of our class time, and won’t keep scheduled “office hours.” Students should not expect us to immediately solve specific design or technical problems, or be blocked by this. Their first resource should be themselves, then this course site and its materials, and then each other.

If there are still questions—particularly logistical or content ones—students can message us on Slack, and we will respond when we can. But this should never be a bottleneck; all of this works better when not done at the last minute.

Additional Technical Help #

For more specific technical instruction and questions, Parsons has dedicated CD-program tutors available to help students with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—as well as offering general design critiques and feedback. The drop-in schedules are available in the CD@Parsons app under “Make & Remake.”

The University Learning Center also offers its own tutoring sessions; these are by-appointment.

As tutors are only available a limited number of hours per week, it is advisable to start early on your projects and seek help along the way—to avoid the usual end of project/semester rush for additional help.

Code Plagiarism #

Students may find code similar to our exercises or projects elsewhere online. But the copying or adapting of any code beyond our provided course material (lectures, exercises, demos) without attribution is not allowed under any circumstances.

If adapting, with attribution, students must explain the usage and demonstrate an understanding of how it works. We have zero tolerance for any sort of plagiarism—which ranges from “verbatim copying” (copying-and-pasting) to “thorough paraphrasing” (changing names or rearranging) of code. Students should also review the Academic Integrity Policy.

LLM s and “Artificial Intelligence” #

Relatedly, there has been a lot of discussion and developments in our field (and others) around large language models, a.k.a. “artificial intelligence.”

Here’s what we’re going to say about this: tools like Chat GPT or GitHub Copilot are known to often generate wrong or unnecessarily verbose code. This, combined with the fact that their results are derived from potentially copyrighted and/or legally questionable sources—usually without permission or attribution—means the use of these tools remains fraught, at best.

We think you first need to write code yourself to understand the medium. Copying/adapting from Chat GPT/Copilot is no different from anywhere else (see above) and is ultimately a disservice to your education. These are to be treated like any other tools at our disposal—as aides to your understanding, not shortcuts around learning. We think you know the difference.

Recording Sessions #

We will take screen recordings of our sessions for students to reference later. As these will include the students and their work, the recordings will be stored on our Google Drive and made available only to New School email users.

Attendance, Grading, and Other Policies #

All CD classes adhere to the same common program and university policies.

Acknowledgments #

We’d like to thank Brendan Griffiths, Lynn Kiang, Eric Li, and the extended MPS CD family for their support in planning this course. And thank you, for reading this far.