In the late 1960's a publication appeared called The Whole Earth Catalogue which continued being published well into the 1970's. The catalogue has been called 'a paper-based database offering thousands of hacks, tips, tools, suggestions, and possibilities for optimizing your life' and has also been referred to as 'the book that changed the world'. Appearing at a point in time before the internet, the catalogue is thought of as a kind of Google 35 years before Google came along.

The catalogue was created by Stuart Brand who's idea was to encompass all you need to know about alternative living that is in harmony with the environment. Brand says, 'The WHOLE EARTH CATALOG' functions as an evaluation and access device. With it, the user should know better what is worth getting and where and how to do the getting.

The aims of the studio are to take the idea of a Whole Earth catalogue and bring that into current and future possibilities through design and digital media.
Q: In tomorrow's world, what would a resource such as the Internet look like? Will there be an Internet at all? How will design engage and interact with future forms of information?

The studio will involve a combined cohort of Communication Design & Digital Media students who will be expected to engage with research and knowledge across a broad area of themes, as well as focused and informed solutions to design digital outputs and speculations on possible outcomes supported by thorough research.

The studio's focus is to encourage and be open to explore a wide variety of design strategies, principles, and techniques which are relevant to area(s) of work that are to be investigated in the studio.

Output from the studio is expected to take a variety of forms such as Virtual and Augmented reality, online / Web based design and interactive solutions, Sonic / audio experimentation, Typographic and layout, and other hybrids that may arise from studio investigations.

There are four assessment tasks for this studio, the briefs comprise of a range of milestone deliverables that are interconnected and build upon each other.

Brief 01: SKO,
Your Studio Knowledge Object will be developed over the Semester and should express and reflect the R & D of your ideas.
Brief 02: INDIVIDUAL PROJECT APPRAISAL
Brief 03: STUDIO DEVELOPMENT
Brief 04: STUDIO WRAP

From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Author: Fred Turner Chapter 4, 'Taking the Whole Earth Digital'

A Background reading about the mood and ideas of the mid-1970s around the experimentation and influence of Counterculture values and ideas/philosophy had on US military funded research projects: The role counterculture had on development of the personal computer & the internet.
______________________________________

50 Years Ago, the Whole Earth Catalogue Launched and Reinvented the Environmental Movement. The publication gave rise to a new community of environmental thinkers, where hippies and technophiles found common ground:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/50-years-ago-whole-earth-catalog-launched-reinvented-environmental-movement-180969682/#0BvVjLErEysVyU3r.99 ____________________________________________

Design and the Post-Digital, Designing Identity, Designing through Image, Designing Publications, Designing Disobedience

The Guardian article in Link 2 (above) will probably not work as the last two words on the end of the url appears to get trimmed. You should be successful if you copy the link below and paste in browser: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/aug/21/san-francisco-exhibition-victoria-albert-revolution-silicon-valley