A college to teach computer design.
It was as simple as that: Computers were taking over advertising/marketing design, and those in creative departments without computer skills were being left on the side of the road. How stupid to try and create a whole college of computer design.
The mission was simple:
- To lead the creative wave in the understanding and application
of computer design - To share that knowledge and experience in an
open educational environment - To assist companies with the leap from traditional modes
of design and production into the brave new world
The Kenyon Center will be a college created for the study and application of computer applied design, 2 & 3D modeling, animation, interactive technologies and the pursuit of technological advancement.
The principle target audience for the college will be middle to large advertising agencies with billings generally of $5 million or more, as well as the in-house ad agency for manufacturing businesses with an average size of $25 million in sales. Additionally, students will come from the general public. The general demographics of the target group will be those recently graduated from college with a basic understanding of design and production skills.
A key target will be in-house ad agencies. It is quite common for in-house agencies to rely upon a staff without traditional art school training – and The Kenyon Center is ideally suited to help this audience master the desktop environment.
The school will not offer seminars, but rather intensive five-day workshops on the application of several computer programs at once. This will be followed by three to four single-day sessions, over the course of three or four weeks, for further improvement. The students will also receive a thorough grounding in the basics of what makes the computer work, as well as color theory. Students will be assessed at the beginning of the term, and the program will be adapted to fit each student’s individual needs and the requirements for their companies. They will graduate with a complete and well-rounded ability to make the computer work for them, including how to find answers to the inevitable questions that will arise after graduation. Indeed, one of the many goals of The Center is to root the student in the basics of advanced electronic graphics and literally teach them to teach themselves.
While other schools and seminars take a fragmented approach to hardware and software, The Kenyon Center will take a holistic approach. Instead of individual classes on a particular program, which often leave students with large basic knowledge gaps, The Kenyon Center will teach the student in the same way they work on a computer – jumping from program to program – working on the kinds of projects they will work with on the job.
The college campus, located in downtown Minneapolis in The Lincoln Centre, is a state-of-the-art environment for learning. Classes are small, with each student working on their own computer, while sharing peripherals and software.
As the center grows, it will expand from the Apple computer-based platform to include a wider network of other computer-assisted design matrixes. These will include animation, three-dimensional modeling, stereo-thermal printing and simulation environments on such varied computers as the NeXT, SGI and Sun.
Kenyon will be uniquely qualified to assist advertising agencies and businesses find the personnel they need to take a place at the forefront of the desktop revolution that is sweeping the print and broadcast production world.
(The business plan,
absolutely not worth reading)
The Kenyon Institute
FOURTH QUARTER 1992