The Now & Next project asks students to consider current and emerging themes in typography to design a poster that communicates their perspective on where type is now and where it is headed next. Students examine intersecting issues such as technology, accessibility, inclusion, representation, and style to frame their perspectives of typographic futures and create a series of posters to communicate these visions. Each poster is accompanied by an AR experience that reinforces and adds to its quality and narrative through interactive media.
Students researched type to conceptualize project directions and then worked with type to construct and compose poster ideas for exhibition. The creative process began with a traditional research and sketching phase to consider type, message, form, and space.
Next, the students transitioned to a digital work flow, worked with digital type and design, and experimented with making 2D and 3D graphics for the AR interactive, immersive experience. Students experimented with 3D image-making capabilities in Illustrator to create assets to be superimposed in the 3D digital space surrounding the physical poster. Next, they worked with AR tools (Adobe Aero) to play with the position, movement, and interactions of the 3D graphics in the 3D digital space.
The AR experience was designed to enhance and augment the physical experience by adding to the conceptual and formal aspects of the poster designs.
At this stage, students began to examine the physical and digital experiences as a comprehensive blended experience across media. How was the work communicating message across digital and physical spaces? How were the forms interacting and/or reacting with one another across media?
The results of this project are a blended typographic experience across print and digital media that aims to challenge past assumptions about typography, its design, its use, and its expectations through experimental practice.
This work demonstrates how using emerging technologies in the classroom to create immersive experiences offers educators new ways to engage and excite students through creative practice and experimentation. I believe, AR can be a powerful tool for sparking imagination and creativity among students as well as inspire new ways of thinking and making.
This work also shows how the process of working and making with AR and the final outcomes produced contribute to genuine connection between students and educators, building community in the classroom and supporting student learning.
Through an interactive and collaborative learning process, we experienced creative experimentation and community-building in the classroom. Through the process, students genuinely connected with one another to experience each other’s work. As a result, the classroom evolved to be more engaged.
Leave a Reply