Although my life is so closely tied with the “New Media,” I felt like it was my first time to exactly know the definition of it after reading Manovich’s writing on new media.
The article reminds me of the programs’ name change issue happened at my previous college, California College of the Arts(CCA). We once had a heated discussion among the design program about changing the name from “Graphic Design” to “Visual Communication.” Since the majority considered that the term “graphic” is out of fashion and not a well presentation of today’s graphic design. Indeed, “graphic” literally means “of or relating to the art of printing” from the dictionary. However, nowadays graphic design is not limited to two-dimensional form (e.g poster, book), it is largely involved with new media. Graphic designers have worked on designing website, app, motion graphic, and interactive installation. The boom of new media also forces the school to update the courses in order to meet the industry’s need, there are more digital based design courses are taught at school compared to two years ago when I graduated.
“Media Arts” was another program that changed name but fail to meet the industry need. The funny effect is that after the program decided to change the name to “Film,” many students in the second year of the program switched major, as well as the first year students who intended to attend the program. The number of enrolled new students also dramatically dropped. School was surprised to find that how much students and parents care about “Media.” Students and parents considered that “media arts” is a much popular profession and a trendy study field.
I often heard form my graphic design friends complained to me that they were asked question about their website/app coding skill in job interviews, which they considered was not designer’s scope. Designer should only design the website, not code it. After attending this class and reading the article I realize it is a totally wrong concept, since if you do not have the basic understanding of programming a website, you definitely cannot design an appropriate interface for it.