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Sustainable Packaging

On 23, Apr 2021 | In Motion, Packaging, Print, Visual Comm. Design Cap I | By Matthew

Open-Ended Question (for students): What would it look like to take an overpackaged product and reimagine it into something that still protects and communicates while making it more environmentally sustainable by reducing materials and giving said product a second life? 

Beneficiary: Future humans.

Open-Ended Question (for the professor): How do I equip soon to graduate seniors with a portfolio project that displays their awesome packaging ideas (packaging being something most impactful when held) when the world is meeting remotely and can’t physically hold their work? My answer was to give them several iterations that led to a final explainer video. 

See the seven best student solutions below.

Design and the Play Instinct

On 12, Dec 2020 | In Design History, Print, Typography, Visual Comm. Design III | By Matthew

In “The Play Instinct in Design Education,” authors Hester and Hannaford identify several misconceptions students have about the creative process: namely, that graphic design is not an intellectual pursuit, software will fix all their problems, and creative outcomes can be “correct.”

A timeless undergraduate project asks students to create using “Design and the Play Instinct” by Paul Rand. The internet is replete with examples of students mindlessly laying out page after page with almost no consideration or understanding of how Rand talks about play and restraint nor the processes discussed in this classic text.

To combat these misconceptions, I ask students in my class to physically make some of the processes discussed in the text. For example, my students first played with Photogram and Cubist Collage processes before laying it out in book form. As Hester and Hannaford say, “the psychology of play is conducive to learning and problem-solving.”

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12

Nov
2020

In Print
Typography
Visual Comm. Design III

By Matthew

Book Series

On 12, Nov 2020 | In Print, Typography, Visual Comm. Design III | By Matthew

Scenario for Students: Your publishing company has bought the rights to distribute the Thames and Hudson series of manuals on the arts. Your job is to explore many conceptual options and present them internally. We’ll have four internal drafts before meeting with the stakeholders at the end of October, where we’ll deliver our best two concepts. Instead of designing all 11 manuals, we’ll give the stakeholders a taste of our skills and only show them three manuals, but with two visually distinct concepts. Since they’ll be comparing and choosing one concept, we should present them the same three books, but with two visually distinct concepts. 

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Type Legibility as seen by Historic Design Style

On 01, Oct 2020 | In Design History, Print, Typography, Visual Comm. Design III | By Matthew

Students communicated the principles discussed in the “The Legibility of Type” through a historical design style.

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15

Feb
2019

In Image and Tech Tinkering
Print
Typography

By Matthew

Women’s Suffrage in Print

On 15, Feb 2019 | In Image and Tech Tinkering, Print, Typography | By Matthew

Dr. Ham trusted me to work independently with the students to lead critiques, lectures, and tutorials.

Module 2: Computational Design Systems: In this assignment, students explore making grids with Shape Grammars and rules for how their design elements will fit into the grid. Then, they test their design system by creating two very different posters with the same rules. 

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18

Apr
2017

In Print
Typography
Typography 1

By Matthew

Cognitive Theories with Type

On 18, Apr 2017 | In Print, Typography, Typography 1 | By Matthew

This assignment asked students to research two different cognitive theories and enact them with a typographic poster. Students were directed to watch three segments of the National Geographic show “Brain Games” and take notes.

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10

Feb
2017

In Print
Typography
Typography 1

By Matthew

Visual Semantics with Type

On 10, Feb 2017 | In Print, Typography, Typography 1 | By Matthew

In this assignment, students explore the power of visual semantics by altering or manipulating type.

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27

Jan
2017

In Print
Typography
Typography 1

By Matthew

Type as Signifier

On 27, Jan 2017 | In Print, Typography, Typography 1 | By Matthew

Type as Signifier: Visual semantics deals with the use and manipulation of words (letters) to illustrate an idea, an action, or evoke some particular pictorial image. This involves the treatment and arrangement of letters in such a way as to make a word visually self-explanatory. – Paul Rand: A Designer’s Art

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