Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Design students tend to work with clearly defined prompts, but design problems in the “real world” are much messier. Designers today must be comfortable applying their skills to solve complex problems without clear answers. To simulate the experience of an industry project, we collaborated with Adobe and a third-party “client” to hold a multi-week “Creative Jam” inside the classroom. Three concurrent classes of Advanced Design for juniors were combined to form teams of 3-4 students to address the problem of physical exercise for the blind and low-vision community. Students spent the first week of the project reviewing the brief and forming questions for the client. The “client” presented the brief through an Adobe-coordinated webinar, and an Adobe trainer guided students through an Adobe XD bootcamp. In the second week, teams worked on their designs with faculty guidance and assembled presentations for judging. In the third week, the teams presented to judges from Adobe and the design industry. Judges provided feedback for each team and scored projects. Winning teams received prizes from Adobe. In later weeks, students worked individually to finalize designs. Students also wrote case studies that reframed the problem, explained the approach, showed the finished work, and addressed opportunities for expansion. This paper outlines the process of the collaboration and shows examples of the resulting student work. We address what the students learned, what we learned, and what we would change in the future.