Teaching

Writing 155A: Document Design and Production (Winter 2023)

Information design in print media; focus on grammatical and rhetorical expertise. Project-based course with a focus on understanding the intersections of writing and visual design. Major project is a brand style guide.

Writing 155B: Digital Portfolio (Spring 2024)

Creation of digital work using software and coding. The major project is the design and production of a professional website, using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WordPress, and other tools. Focus on developing effective design and communication skills within a digital environment.

Writing 105M: Multimedia Writing (Spring 2023)

A course focused on analyzing and creating multimedia compositions. Projects in the Summer 2018 course approached data collection, analysis, and visualization from a variety of perspectives. The students did amazing work.

INT 94WD: Writing and Designing for the Web (Winter 2021)

This is a project-based course in which students create a website or blog on a subject of their choice. They define topic and audience, learn key characteristics of effective web writing and design, and create a multimedia, interactive, engaging website or blog using WordPress.

INT 94VA: Responsive and Accessible Web Design Made (Sort of) Easy (Spring 2019)

In 10 weeks, students learn enough HTML and CSS to be able to modify a website template and make it their own. The website can be used for academic, professional, and personal work. We also cover strategies for designing sites that are responsive on different devices, accessible to a range of users, and rhetorically effective in conveying content.

Projects

Some recent and ongoing work.

Visualizing COVID-19

I wrote several articles on data visualization during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was interested in how non-experts used the data dashboards that proliferated during the pandemic; in how anthropomorphic visualizations might impact users' understanding of COVID-19 data; and in how visualization and interactivity were used in narratives about the pandemic.

Dear Data

This webtext, published in Kairos and co-written with my former student Austin Fauni, discusses a Dear Data project that I did in a Summer 2018 section of Writing 105M.

Text, Image, Data, Interaction

I wrote an article on how to understand information visualizations, with particular reference to Dollar Street. The article was published in Computers and Composition Volume 54, December 2019.

Text visualization

I'm interested in typography, text/image combinations, and text visualization.

Slide design

I do workshops on designing effective slides.

most fabulous resources

Below are just a few of the very best resources that I use in my courses.

good design

CSS Zen Garden: awesome CSS since 2003
Clean Up Your Mess: good advice for everyone
Top Ten Slide Design Tips, by Garr Reynolds

color

Adobe Color CC: check out the option to "Create from image"
Coolors.co: generate a color palette, extract colors from images, and other goodies
Palleton: color combinations for website design

Photoshop alternatives

Affinity: inexpensive, desktop, solid
Pixlr: free, online
Photopea: free, online, very like Photoshop
GIMP: free, open-source, desktop

typography

The History of Typography: a fun five-minute video by Ben Barrett-Forrest
Practical Typography by Matthew Butterick
8 Typography Tips for Designers

AI multimedia generators

Midjourney: the best (?) AI image generator
Suno: create your own songs for free; listen to my ballad to Saul Goodman
Sora: AI video generator

misc free stuff

Unsplash: the best free, high-quality, copyright-friendly photos
Pexels: the other Unsplash
GraphicBurger: vector graphics and other fabulous stuff

infographic inspiration

Nicholas Felton
Dear Data
Information is Beautiful awards: a yearly best of infovis

beyond fabulous

Futuracha font: so fun
The Johnny Cash Project: by Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk, you'll love it
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand: also by Aaron Koblin

more free stuff

Knightlab: a suite of open source tools for digital storytelling
Meet the Ipsums: so much more fun than plain old lorem

my daughter

I've taken thousands of photos of Sophia during her 19-ish years on this earth and in my life. It turns out that from every angle she's perfect.