Assignment 1 — The Convincing Copy

Make a convincing copy of a real style or technique, in any of the course's four materials, and declare exactly what you made it with and from.

Due: 5 September 2027 · Weight: 30%

The brief#

Make a convincing copy of a real style or technique — in paint, prose, currency design or code — and write the note that would turn it from a forgery back into a copy.

Pick one material the studios have covered by week 6 (paint and physical materials from weeks 1–5 are the most developed by this point, but a handwriting or textual copy from week 5 is equally valid) and one real source to study closely: a specific painter’s brushwork, a specific writer’s sentence rhythm, a specific note’s security features, a specific programmer’s coding style. The craft is getting close enough that the connoisseur’s-eye checklist from week 2 has to work to find the seam. The judgement being tested is what you chose to get right first when you couldn’t get everything right at once — the same asymmetry week 2’s lecture named, now from the forger’s side of it instead of the detective’s.

What you submit#

The copy itself (a physical object photographed, a text file, a rendered image, or a short audio/video clip, whichever fits your material), and a materials-and-method note of 150–300 words: what real source you studied, what you made the copy with, and which one decision you’re least confident survives scrutiny. A submission without the note is treated as undeclared regardless of how good the copy is — see the policies page for why that line matters here specifically.