Course Descriptions - Undergraduate Calendar 2022-2023

This course draws on multiple theoretical perspectives to introduce students to the fundamental principles of multi-modal communication design in its social context. Students will analyze, design, and produce images and interactivity for use in a variety of digital platforms, including e-learning and business applications.

This course introduces students to the principles of designing time-based multi-modal communication in a social context. Students will analyse, design, and produce video for use in a variety of digital platforms, including e-learning and business applications.

In this course students will be introduced to sound analysis and production. Students will learn to record, edit, and implement sound in a variety of linear and non-linear media forms, with emphasis on film and video games.

This course explores the fundamentals of game design. It focuses on the essentials shared by all games that are fundamental for a game designer working in any medium, from sports to board games to computer and video games. Although the focus of the course is on designing, prototyping, and testing non-digital games, digital games will be discussed in class to provide students with a broad theoretical and conceptual understanding of the field of game design and development along with practical exercises to train for creating a game.

In this course students will learn advanced digital design theory. They will participate in workshops with professional designers, develop specialized digital materials, and contribute signature work to their digital portfolio.

This course teaches students the principles and practices of telling stories using digital technologies to produce short narratives in audio and/or visual formats. Students will learn to develop and present story ideas, create storyboards, write short scripts, and then render their narratives using a variety of digital techniques and tools.

This course advances the skills developed in DAC 203. Students will learn to analyse and produce sound for screen-based media, including film and video games.

This course introduces fundamental design skills for two-dimensional interactive video games and provides the theoretical knowledge of the emotional and cognitive effects of video game play. Students will understand the importance of user experience assessment for video games as part of iterative design and development. Students will learn to theorize, design, prototype, and test digital games with a special focus on exploring the impact that video games have on human experience.

This course focuses on the creative, technical, and artistic challenges inherent to creating visual content (film, photos, graphics) for the increasingly ubiquitous out-of-home digital displays. The size, configuration, placement, and functions of these public digital displays require new artistic and technical techniques to fully exploit their capabilities. In the course students will explore the design affordances of several types of public digital display as well as produce dynamic, interactive content for them.

This course explores cinematic representation from an audio-visual production perspective. Students will learn an explicit and replicable theoretical vocabulary for analyzing cinematic technique, as well as engage in practice by creating videographic essays that analyze, interrogate, and extend forms of cinematic representation. Students will engage in production workshops and have access to video and audio editing software.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of user experience design as it applies to the design of interactive digital media. Topics will include user-centred design, personas, iterative testing, prototyping, information gathering interviews, and contextual inquiry.

In this course students will be introduced to design and production of digital business presentations. They will develop specialized digital materials and contribute work to their digital portfolio.

Students work in small groups under the supervision of a faculty researcher on an ongoing, large-scale, digital design project.

This course teaches students to prepare for one of their most pressing challenges upon graduation: to choose and then enter the digital design profession that fits best with their personal and career goals. Design thinking strategies and tools provide the framework for this exploration. Throughout the course students will create a variety of career preparatory materials - such as a career and competency ePortfolio, a behaviour-based interview protocol, an "odyssey plan" - as they engage in workshops, group discussions, interviews, and professional reflections.

In this course students will learn advanced digital design theory as it applies to speech communication. They will develop specialized digital materials and contribute work to their digital portfolio.