AUV536Advanced 3D Animation
3 credits | Pre-requisite: AUV339 or AUV449
This course covers in depth three categories of objects, characters, vehicles and environment. Students will learn the process of creating, texturing, rigging and animating a character. They will learn how futuristic cars are built in CG movies and how to make them look so real. And finally they will create eye-catching scenery to shoot a 15 seconds movie featuring all the elements they have created in the course.
CVA275Advanced Photoshop
3 credits
Advance production techniques in Adobe Photoshop. Class explores and implements digital imaging theory and processes to enhance and retouch photographs and create new works of art.
CVA270Advanced Typography
3 credits
In this course, students will learn to design esthetic projects based only on typography and to express and execute their ideas to solve design problems.
DIM420Advanced User Interface Design
3 credits
This course will give students an in-depth look at the advanced techniques of creating heavy and complicated user interfaces.
CVA470Advertising Photography
3 credits
The course focuses on professional photographic illustration, in order to inform and prepare the students to translate an acceptable visual for an advertising project, while using photographic digital media.
CVA265Calligraphy
3 credits
The students, at the end of the course, will be able to recognize and use the Arabic letter (family, construction and composition), and will be able to write with a graphic pen through exercises of calligraphy and tracing. They will be able to compose texts and letters. To better master typography depending on conventional methods being applied in infographics fields, students will learn about the different techniques of composing letters and the harmony of composition. This course allows students to better use the Arabic letter in logo designs, hand written slogans, etc.
CVA285Comics
3 credits
The topic of “Comics” is an art unto itself and requires many abilities. In this course, students will learn to express their “pen strokes” and their imaginations in different alternative domains: advertising, communication, cinema and animation.
CVA375Consumer Behavior
3 credits
The objective of the course is to enable students to better understand the buying motivation and the decision-making process as to better guide them in their choices and realization of advertising concepts.
CVA380Corporate Design
3 credits
This is an exploration into the idea that memorable visual messages with text have the greatest power to inform, educate, and persuade an individual in general and a potential consumer in particular. This course is an attempt to discover why some images are remembered while most are not.
CVA250Critical Thinking
3 credits
Trying to stop the creative stagnation of students, this course, as its name indicates, tries to integrate a polyvalent and flexible platform which answers to the problems which come up throughout the semester, going through the technological evolution and its impact on the notion of creativity within advertising and graphics. This combination within all its parameters, presents itself under the shape of a workshop where « critical thinking » plays an important role of the motor within communication.
CVA255Cultural Studies
3 credits
This is an interdisciplinary field that looks different depending on the context in which it is practiced. This course focuses on the multiple perspectives of culture, including theoretical positions, high and low culture distinction, the rise of mass culture, ideology, racism, social resistance, etc. through diverse case studies including literature, art, music, theatre, online culture, etc.
AUV223Digital Illustration
3 credits
The students will create, draw and illustrate using techniques and tools from different software. The students will be able to integrate different shapes and forms into a cohesive work of art.
PHO461Fine Arts Photography
3 credits | Pre-requisite: PHO202 or PHO447
Students will gain an appreciation and understanding for the fine art of photography through the study of basic photography skills and concepts. Students will start with a digital unit emphasizing composition and color. Students will also learn to operate and manipulate a 35mm SLR camera along with black and white film processing and printing in the darkroom. In addition, students will experiment with hand-tinting, multiple images and computer manipulation with Photoshop. Students will also learn various presentation techniques including dry mounting with a hot press and mat cutting.
DIM220Fundamentals of Interaction Design
3 credits
Students will implement the foundations of interactive media including user-interface design concepts, optimization/performance issues, resources and tools. Students combine audio, video, imaging, animation, and other media formats to construct an interactive product using industry-standard software.
CVA485Game Design
3 credits
Students acquire the fundamentals of game mechanics, game art, and game narratives.
CVA295History of Advertising and Media
3 credits
This course is designed to explain to students the rise of advertising to its position of prominence. It starts with the development of advertising as a communication tool, a cultural and economic phenomenon, and as a force that both constructs and reflects society. It retraces worldwide and local advertising campaigns, which have labeled advertising, and the commencement of the digital advertising era.
CVA395History of Contemporary Art
3 credits
This course presents the notion of contemporary, as related to art, and goes through groups, movements and tendencies that governed contemporary art after 1945 in different countries, going through the post-war years and the transition between modern and contemporary and taking in the 2000-2010 decade, and historically the 40s-90s years in addition to events which were going on in France, Italy, the United States and Asia.
CVA390History of Digital Media
3 credits
This course aims at introducing students to the use of digital tools in research, analysis, visualization, and sharing of historical data, documents, and texts. The goal is to provide a largely open/free toolbox that may be useful in the students' research activities. Furthermore, we will focus on understanding and analyzing the various shapes digital history takes and the possibilities it provides for new forms of scholarship.
CVA290History of Graphic Design
3 credits
This course is a general overview of the history of graphics. It goes back to the first inscriptions in caves and progressing with time arriving at the internet, all while going through the origin of symbols, different alphabets, printing, logos, typography, layout and new media and even some artistic trends.
CVA260Illustration Art
3 credits
The purpose of this course is to initiate the students to the art of illustration on paper or any adequate material. They will examine how to pick the theme, how to come up with the concept, and how to proceed with the necessary steps to the final execution: ink, gouache, watercolor, pastel and acrylics are the techniques to learn.
FLM319Introduction to Cinematography
3 credits | Pre-requisite: PHO225
Students will acquire knowledge in the theory of film form. Students will apply these different forms through framing, lighting and assembling shots to create a system of expression based on the indirect time movement images.
AVC204Introduction to Contemporary Cinema
3 credits
The students will be introduced to contemporary films and how films reflect and contribute to the values and culture of a society. Students will explore dominant forms by examining Hollywood cinema, classical and post-classical film, European cinema, and also by examining alternative cinema, art cinema, key movements and concepts including genre, spectatorship and authorship.
FLM316Introduction to Scriptwriting
3 credits
The students will acquire basic knowledge and techniques of writing a narrative script for film. The students will be able to create and develop characters, and story line for classical film structure.
PHO463Landscape Photography
3 credits | Pre-requisite: PHO202 or PHO447
Students will acquire the know-how of photographing natural and cultural aspects of landscapes and will develop a portfolio of digital photographs.
CVA365Media Strategies
3 credits
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the development of a marketing and communication plan. Planning, selection, and evaluation of all major mass media vehicles and the various decisions and problems that arise in those processes will be discussed and considered. In addition, students will be gaining a broad knowledge of the various media techniques, patterns and factors that influence the mass media decisions. The students will learn specifically the component of a media plan and the implementation of a media schedule.
CVA480Portfolio Design
3 credits
Preparation of a portfolio comprised of completed design projects: the evaluation and the demonstration of portfolio presentation methods based on the student’s specific area of study. This course is designed to help students gather all previous projects together and prepare a creative design portfolio consisting of the projects developed in typography, design communication and all the essential courses taken. This course will educate students on how to create a living in the visual communication industry. Tips and lectures will be given to help students to make an impression with their work. Students will prepare their portfolio in the most creative way in order to face the industry with confidence.
CVA280Printing Techniques
3 credits
The “Printing” course consists of teaching the designers the way to create the best possible print production for their designs. It introduces almost all the necessary tools and techniques of print production and the how-to skills to create a correct pre-press PDF file ready-to-print.
CVA370Radio Spot
3 credits
This course aims to introduce students to the importance of audio in general and radio in particular as a communication tool for advertising. Designing a spot requires a choice between several concepts, voice-overs, music, editing, and all factors that make a successful radio campaign.
CVA475Seminar in Design
3 credits
The course is designed as a discussion of the major issues related to technology trends and change in communication. Students are expected to be able both to relate important information from the readings as well as offer their own interpretations of the ideas and issues discussed in class. Because of the uniqueness of some aspects of this topic, especially advances in global communications, the students will be required to think independently though still with a strong grounding in the relevant literature. To facilitate such discussion each session will be divided into three parts. First, discussion will center on the nature of the trend to be addressed that session. Students will gain an understanding of how that trend works, the breadth of its scope, and its effects on international brands. Second, discussion will turn to the assigned literature for that session to examine what students have to offer concerning that topic. Finally, students will discuss the prospects for international change in light of future developments in that trend.
AUV451Sound Design
3 credits | Pre-requisite: TLV331 Or TLV431
The students will understand the various means of designing sound for film, using acquired techniques. The students will be able to integrate different sound tracks into a cohesive and well-balanced track.
CVA245Storyboard for Film
3 credits
Storyboards are a series of illustrations displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing an animated or live-action film. A storyboard is essentially a large comic of the film or some section of the film produced beforehand to help the directors and cinematographers visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. Storyboard is the process of visual thinking and planning that allows a group of people to brainstorm together, fostering more ideas and generating consensus.
CVA355TV Idents Design
3 credits
In this course, students will learn how to think creatively and execute corporate TV idents, in close relation with TV identity. This course is a combination of interaction between corporate identity, animation, editing, music and coloring.
DIM325User Interface Design
3 credits
This course will help students to explore the basic guidelines of user interface design, while also learning the new and updated trends and principles of UI.