Signage competes for attention, conveys content, and merges into identity. “Visualizing San Francisco: Exploring Signage & Public Spaces”, is an interdisciplinary seminar for new students at the University of San Francisco. Participants assess their place in public space by investigating the presence of words and images in the urban landscape.
San Francisco, a city of contrasts, dynamic history and cultural flow, is soaked with a unique composition of words and image that comprise signage. All manner of visual communication - directional signage, retail signs, banners, posters, billboards and advertisements strewn about the streets and buildings struggles for attention, purpose, and the creation of urban identity.
“Visualizing San Francisco” is a study of visual culture and its contexts. This course surveys graphic design styles, typographic forms and media found on signage dating from the early days of San Francisco to the present. As new citizens of San Francisco, students tour various neighborhoods and communities of the city, observing, collecting and documenting signage. Reading, writing, and thinking about words and images [signage] as voices in the urban landscape enable participants to interpret who the signage is speaking to and when. Students engage in writing about their discoveries, and in the process learn to navigate their way through the city.
Core F Learning Outcomes
1. Students will demonstrate a critical understanding of the political, economic and social underpinnings of visual communications and signage: Students read and respond to theoretical texts that provide political, economic and social frameworks to analyze the production of visual communications and signage.
2. Students will learn to chronologically sequence selected visual communications and signage: Students will read historical texts and learn to identify features of visual communications and signage through field trips of multiple districts throughout San Francisco. Intended audiences will be identified, analyzed and interpreted to gain an understanding of the populations of each district.
3. Students will be able to identify and analyze the growth and development of urban visual communications and signage across various world cities and regions. Students will read texts in conjunction with class lectures and discussions and understanding of how the signage in San Francisco neighborhoods and communities attract specific audiences.
4. Students will learn to use comparative methods to compare and contrast visual communications and signage throughout San Francisco. Students will read the landscape and assigned texts in conjunction with class lectures and discussions. They will develop and understanding of how San Francisco districts and neighborhoods use signage to attract specific audiences.
5. Students will learn to articulate and defend their judgements through a studied, engaged, and informed process of reflection as well as action: Students develop focused research questions and compose substantial arguments in response to those questions, incorporating extensive independent library research, field observations and documentation.
6. Students will learn to approach and appreciate visual communications or signage throughout the San Francisco. They will learn how to read and analyze visual culture using multidisciplinary approaches and how to use critical thinking as a key skill in interpreting their social world. Students will learn to read the city around them and better navigate their way through San Francisco.
The following San Francisco sites and communities will be investigated: USF, the Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, Mission, Castro, Baker Beach, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Sunset, Haight-Ashbury, Pacific Heights, Potrero Hill, China Basin, Bayview / Hunters Point, SOMA, Tenderloin, Financial District, Golden Gate National Parks.
[download course syllabus + schedule + field trips]
[download handout 01/ thought paper guidelines]
READINGS
[download reading: “San Francisco: Cities of Imagination”
“Narrative Archeology: Reading the Landscape”, Jeremy Hight, MIT
ONLINE FIELD JOURNALS
Documentation
PRESENTATIONS
week 01 / August 27
week 02 / September 03 / No Class / Labor Day
week 03 / September 10
week 04 / September 17
week 05 / September 24
week 06 / October 01
Preserving the WPA’s Artistic Legacy
“Some San Francisco preservationists are raising an alarm about the decay of WPA murals inside the city's iconic Coit Tower. As they collect signatures to place a measure on the ballot to preserve the 75 to 80-year-old artwork, historians say other WPA projects in the Bay Area and across the nation are similarly threatened by time and neglect.”
week 07 / October 08
/ No Class / Fall Break
week 08 / October 15
Individual Reviews / Blogs / Thought Papers
week 09 / October 22
week 10 / October 29
week 11 / November 05
week 12 / November 12
week 13 / November 19
week 14 / November 26
week 15 / December 03
ONLINE FIELD JOURNALS / SPRING 2012
Final Paper Examples Spring 2011
1. Healthy San Francisco
2. Bicycling in San Francisco
3. Signage Comparison
4. Signage + Family Connections
Stacy Asher / Instructor
Office Hours:
Wednesdays 12:45–1:45 p.m.
Gleeson Library, 4th Floor
or by appointment