Precise Cultivation of Craftsmanship in Art Literacy Courses for Design Majors within the Context of Generative Design

Abstract

The widespread application of generative AI is profoundly reshaping the pedagogical landscape for design majors. While significantly boosting efficiency in image acquisition and concept development, it has also exposed students to tendencies such as diminished formal judgment, a weakened sense of physical making (materiality), and superficial cultural expression. Traditional art literacy courses, which rely heavily on artwork appreciation and knowledge trans-mission, are increasingly inadequate for this novel learning paradigm. Grounded in curriculum theory and pedagogical reform, and having defined the generative design educational context, this paper combines literature review with curricu-lum design to analyze the current misalignments in art literacy courses. It fur-ther explores the underlying logic of translating craftsmanship into curriculum objectives, content organization, instructional implementation, and evaluation criteria. The study posits that the core mission of art literacy courses in the generative design era is to rebuild students' foundational, prerequisite judgment in design learning. By mapping the principles of relentless refinement, prag-matic truth-seeking, and principled innovation onto three training dimensions—formal aesthetics, materiality awareness, and cultural understanding—the curriculum establishes a cohesive implementation chain. This chain encom-passes deviation identification, homologous comparison, iterative revision, process documentation, and evidence-based evaluation. Ultimately, the precise cultivation of craftsmanship in art literacy courses can only be realized when it is substantially embedded into the specific cognitive processes through which students observe, evaluate, and revise AI-generated outputs.