Visual essays in design education

visual essays as pedagogical tools

Design foundation courses often center around individual projects with an emphasis on final outcomes towards individual students. While this system functions well, there is opportunity to develop a deeply collaborative culture through active learning within these studio courses. Collaboration is widely considered a threshold skill for today’s design practice. The process of design itself is intrinsically collaborative and modern design problems are increasingly uncertain and complex. I am examining the use of visual essays as a pedagogical tool to teach collaborative practices to undergraduate students in a design foundation course.

This is an ongoing investigation funded by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Teaching Advancement Grant.

initial research

Initial research began with a fellowship in the Design Educators Community Design Writing Fellowship. The fellows worked individually and collaboratively to discuss and investigate the history and future of an often overlooked communication artifact, the visual essay/narrative. Together, we investigated the origins, influences, and possibilities for this specific essay format.

sharing research

The fellows shared learnings with the greater design education community through an exhibition of work at the AIGA National Design Conference in Seattle in October 2022.