(DES-720A-03)
This site is our class notebook, a place to document and share what we learn.
Pratt Institute
Graduate Communications Design
Fall 2025
| Class Location | Steuben Hall, Room 409 |
|---|---|
| Class Hours | 5:00pm -7:50pm, Every Tuesday |
| Instructor | Tanvi (she/her) |
| Instructor email | t[email protected] |
| Office Hours | By appointment only, email to schedule. |
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Figma
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Each week, as you complete your readings, you should keep informal notes on each text in a reading log. Discuss what these texts mean to you and how they contribute to your understanding of textual form. You do’t hav to agree with everything! If you are critical of something, tell us why. You are free to experiment with formats until you find one that works best for you—but, as a guideline, each week’s entry should be roughly two pages in length. If you are going to use AI don’t bother. I don’t want to read AI slop. Please email me each week’s log entry by noon on Monday.
Phase III
Building on our work with data, this unit introduces live input as real-time data gathered from sensors and devices to create interactive, responsive systems.
The invention of participatory systems and feedback-centered communication models, from early cybernetic experiments by Norbert Wiener to Douglas Engelbart’s vision of augmenting human intellect through collaborative computing, gives birth to the field of interaction design. This shift moves communication design beyond static, top-down messaging to dynamic, dialogic processes that emphasize agency, social context, and co-creation.
Interaction design emerges as a critical practice concerned not only with technological innovation but with the politics of participation, empowerment, and how technology mediates human relationships in complex social systems.
In this unit, you will learn to think in interaction and build time-based designs that respond to real-world inputs. You’ll investigate how embodied interaction challenges traditional design practices by introducing unpredictability, immediacy, and physical presence into both digital and physical forms. We’ll consider how designers can work with live, sensor-generated data to create responsive systems that evolve over time and foster connection and community through design.
Goal: Design a live, communal system guided by a protocol that shapes participation over time.