In my Intro to Visual Design class, I am having my students explore a range of design concepts such as light, shadow, color, harmony, symmetry, etc. The first weeks of our class was focused on abstraction and each exercise was intended to have them grasp an understanding of how successful design is a combination of various elements and principles coming together to depict an idea. They did this by designing compositions through analog and digital illustrations, photography, typography, and images provided to them.
Recently, I had them begin to interpret open-ended prompts such as “joy, chaos, silence, disruption, tension, structure, sound, emptiness, identity, war, peace, space, health, hospitality, transportation, technology, nature, energy.”
I may share some of their work in the coming weeks. We‘ll see.