Max Bittker

From image macro bricolage to cell-phone novels, beat-maker apps, and TikTok trends; the phone is not just the primary site of media consumption, but also for emerging forms of art production. It’s time to take these tools seriously, and to understand what the mobile touchscreen offers to creatives. This course is a dialog between collaboratively researching the existing landscape of mobile creative tools and building our own. Students will document and discuss a wide range of tools, analyzing their designs and sharing through making. We will compare these tools to their “mouse and keyboard” counterparts, reflecting on who and what they empower. Understanding the strengths, limitations, and implications of existing mobile creative tools will empower us to imagine and realize their future. Half of class time will be devoted to applying this research towards the design and implementation of new tools. Students will use web technologies to develop a variety of small shareable touchscreen interfaces, such as meme-makers, musical instruments, typography tools, and digital fashion designers. By the end of the semester, we will have built a body of research on the landscape of mobile creative tools, developed theories and principles about this space, and applied those principles towards a set of functional and shareable prototypes. Introductory familiarity with JavaScript, CSS and HTML is required. Students can expect to strengthen skills in mobile UX design, programming interactive web applications, and effective prototyping strategies.