Media Arts Fundamentals

This course is designed for students who are not professional designers or photographers but who have a personal interest in photo and image editing. BCOM17 explores a range of Photoshop tools, palettes, and functions used for creating, editing, capturing, repairing, resizing, and enhancing digital images. The course includes modules on selection techniques, layers, paint and colour techniques, type elements, filters, sharpening and softening, actions, lighting, repairing and retouching, and printing and publishing. (3 hrs. per week)

Prerequisite: None

This course is designed to help students develop and practice the communication skills needed to succeed in college and workforce environments. Emphasis is placed on improving foundational communication strategies-reading, writing, listening, and speaking—and on developing research and critical thinking skills.

The aim of this course is to introduce the design and conceptual fundamentals used by graphic designers. The course emphasizes both the visual forms used to create design compositions, as well as the concept development process. This studio course uses hands-on projects, and incorporates terms and techniques that are taught in other courses including typography, colour, photography and writing. Course content is delivered using a lecture/discussion format, and develops the students’ critical thinking/analysis skills through group critique sessions.

An introductory course the fundamentals of digital photography, elements of composition, and basic image editing. Also examined are photography's role in society, and a brief overview of the history of photography. You will learn the practical side of digital photography by exploring the various camera parts, functions and photographic techniques that will lead to producing technically sound images. Digital workflow, including image editing and optimization for various purposes is also covered. There will be series of photographic assignments, which will be edited and optimized in our computer lab, culminating in the production of visually compelling images. You will also gain an appreciation of aesthetics and composition, through discussions, critiques and writing an artist statement.

This course is a computer lab based practical course that is a study and introduction to video editing and post-production. Students will demonstrate through the Adobe Creative series basic non-linear editing techniques to produce visual montages and sequence-based instructional videos.

This course further develops basic design fundamentals for a professional graphic designer. Students learn fundamental design concepts through the completion of hands-on projects. The topics include steps in the design process, the development of design layouts, and the role of the critique process.

Prerequisite(s): DESI 101 + DESI 131 + DESI 151 + DESI 181