Faced with budget restrictions and limitations in available or appropriate artwork, designers may find resolutions to their visual design assignments by either creating their own artwork or developing a vocabulary of visual forms. Designers with the knowledge and courage to create their own artwork allow themselves to be very adaptable to a wide variety of client needs and give themselves the potential to create powerful visual images and in turn, a wide variety of potential solutions to help fulfill clients’ objectives.
The Assignment: Students are given an assignment to either create a poster, cover design, or web banner using vector elements. Subject matter for the assignment was either a music application, mathematical society, mechanical expo, nautical theme, or book expo. Elements on the page outside of typography were to avoid literal representations of their subject matter. Students are encouraged to investigate a variety of forms and shapes that would resonate with an audience in a more abstract manner. Abstract shapes and forms by themselves suggest different things to different people. But within the context of their subject matter and the complimentary use of type, students find elements of design and allow their audience to grasp at what is only a hint and let them make of it what they want it to be.
Students research and explore potential forms with the understanding that what is involved is imaginative or an aesthetic response, rather than a search for some represented subject. Within a thorough research process and investigation of elements students may find their visual vocabulary of forms without typography may not need articulation at all — and may be limited or spoiled by adding words; it can be just a feeling. Abstract elements in graphic design can speak very directly to our feelings.
An additional assignment for the more illustrative students was to render an object entirely within Adobe Illustrator.
