About· Lecture
In an age, where software enables everyone to design for themselves, the lecture is supposed to give some basic understanding and knowledge to the listeners, which will enable them to be able to work on some simple design projects, such as layout for papers, c.v. and presentations at a basic professional level. It emphasizes the importance of working in a structured way drawing on the experience of actual graphic designers.
The lecture includes explanations on what – beside creativity – makes a design a good design, talking about unwritten rules that help a design to make sense, be clear and easily understandable. It provides important knowledge about the use of typography in both Chinese and English language: how to choose a typeface, how to set up text that is easily readable and looks good.
It gives some advice on how to use colours and images in a good way to make your designs more interesting and explains how to use margins and grids to organize everything on the page. It ends with some valuable hints at best practice.
About· Workshop
The workshop builds on the lecture and it is expected that participants have seen the lecture, as the knowledge learned in the lecture is to be put into practice.
In the beginning, the Christoph will teach the basic functions of the free layout software Scribus. Then you will have the chance to design a flyer for ShanghaiTech School of Creativity and Art to recruit students. You will be given materials to do so or you can also prepare your own materials beforehand, such as a nice idea, some photos you have taken yourself or some text you have written yourself. If you prepare something yourself, keep in mind that it should be short and sweet to fit on two A4 pages including the images.
Requirements:
Please install the software and bring your computer. The software is available in Chinese. It will install in the same language as your system, but the language setting can be changed afterwards.
Download the software here:
https://www.scribus.net/downloads/stable-branch/
You may also come up with an idea and materials and bring them to the workshop.
About· Guest
Christoph Stahl was born in Germany in 1975. He studied visual communication with focus on graphic design and illustration at Kassel, hometown of the famous Documenta art exhibition. There, he earned his degree that equals master with Swiss Professor Christof Gassner and a unique graduate work that combined graphic design, illustration and new media.
Shortly after his graduation, he was invited to teach in the Computer Art Studio of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He lived, taught and designed in Beijing for altogether nine years, during which he got the opportunity to become the first foreign doctor student of Central Academy of Fine Arts School of Design under Professor Wang Min, who among other things supervised the design group for Beijing 2008 Olympics.
Christoph finished his doctoral thesis about Bilingual Typography with Hanzi and Latin Letters in 2010. He continued as a lecturer at Central Academy of Fine Arts for two years, teaching typography and graphic design basics.
In 2012, he returned to Germany, where he worked as a designer for several companies, including five years in a hotel company, where he worked on international projects.
This year he has returned to China to start teaching once again and will be sharing his wide knowledge and experience in graphic design with you at ShanghaiTech.
