This project tasked students with demonstrating the emotive meaning of a set of words with minimal alterations to the placement of each word's letters. Only black and white were allowed, and little to no shape/line.

This project began with a group exercise of ideating words that lend themselves well to visual treatments, and students were able to supplement this list of words with options of their own.

In this project students selected a ~1-min long snippet of a spoken performance; most chose stand-up comedy. Then students were tasked with placing the type within a 10-inch square in a manner which properly evoked the delivery of the spoken piece.

While these projects turned out remarkably well, what sticks with me most were the conversations that we had as a class regarding cultural awareness surrounding certain topics. A student chose to bring in a snippet of a joke the a white, cis, male comedian made regarding a Black, houseless person who declared that they had AIDS. This audio snippet only came to my attention while students and I were reviewing the samples of audio. I sensed a form of discomfort in the, particularly since I had been open in class previously about being a Black queer person.

I took this opportunity to discuss artist intent versus reception, and we played the clip again. After the replay, I asked the students if they felt as though the comedian was laughing with, or at a houseless person with AIDS. After another discussion on whose role it is to tell which jokes, and which jokes are for which audiences, we came to the conclusion that the comedian was well intentioned, as the joke centered upon the delivery with which the houseless man had approached the comedian, not regarding the houseless man's socioeconomic background.

After selecting a designer of their choice and researching their style and process, students were tasked with creating an 18''× 24'' poster celebrating the legacy of the designer. Students were reccomended to not display their chosen designer unless the design necessitated it in order for them to focus on more imaginative imagery.

This student chose to research and celebrate April Greiman through a characteristic use of color, a consciousness of media, and type as image. The poster is hyper colorful, and the type is used as both image and texture, not unlike how Greiman might. The poster is also cognizant of medium, featuring the Macintosh, a letter with the stamp of Greiman's design, and a inset poster-like rectangle within itself. Icons orbit the edges of the poster serving as a timeline of Greiman's career.

This student chose to research and
celebrate the career of Emory Douglas. This student chose a route outside of what was assigned, but arrived somewhere very interesting. Instead of celebrating the design legacy of Douglas, this student chose to celebrate the Black Panther designer
as a feminist.

Unlike many other leaders of the
midcentury Civil Rights era, Douglas was steadfast and vocal in his support of the equality of genders. This student was inspired by Douglas' words conveying this, but also his art which projected the strength of women.

In this project, students were tasked with collecting 20 or more instances of what they consider “good” type. As guidance for what good type can mean, I gave examples of expert handlettering on the side of a local shop, nicely kerned type in a textbook, type whose materiality and texture plays a key role in it's legibility, and more.

This project challenges normative notions of what good type can be and gives students space to recognize examples of type which speaks to their own lived experiences.

This student focused primarily on type found on the products sold in Target stores, but also type that they had previously noticed out in the world. The layout of this book was inspired by nutrition fact labels, which the student noticed are very centered upon legibilty, and make good use of type.