STUDENT WORK GALLERY
GD 2: Human Rights / Human Wrongs
2015, 2016, 2024, 2025, 2026
INSTRUCTOR REFLECTION
I have run this project for over ten years. The core question never changes: how do you communicate a social justice issue visually, with intention and responsibility? But the constraint does. Some semesters require three posters, and others require two. Some semesters the focus is semiotic — students work with metaphor, connotation and denotation, the gap between what an image shows and what it means. In other semesters, the constraint is methodological — three visual languages chosen from photography, illustration, and typography. Some semesters require physical creation, including collage, sculpture, fabric, and found objects. I've had students build sculptures. I've had students use drywall. The medium becomes part of the argument.
What I've learned from running it this way is that the constraint shapes the thinking as much as the topic does. A student working semiotically asks: What does this image mean? A student working methodologically asks: What does this medium do that another cannot? Both questions lead to a stronger design than no constraint at all. I haven't decided which version is better. That uncertainty keeps the project alive for me .
Student work
Curated selection across semesters
Student Project Reflections
"This project challenged me to design with intention. I was pretty dead-set on my concept and message from the beginning, so I had direction, but I initially really struggled with what to do with that motivation. I had a ton of different ideas, so I was forced to think deeply about what imagery and wording represented my stance best" - Anonymous, 2026
"In terms of my learning this project greatly honed my visual rhetoric skills, as well as broadened my understanding of design. Additionally this project helped to familiarize me with the formal graphic design process" - Anonymous, 2026
"At the start I was feeling a little bit off about the issue I chose because I knew nobody else was going to mention an international issue with everything that is going on right now, however, the purpose of this project was to use our graphic design skills to raise our voices against social issues in the world and create awareness, it’s our way to help and be part of the change, so I still wanted to participate with something that I feel more affected by." - Anonymous, 2025
"One of the main struggles that I had faced while working on it was trying to figure out what I should do for each of my posters, especially with the photograph based one, and to design them in a way that properly conveyed my message. I eventually learned from the in-process critique that text is often the best way to communicate a clear message, since I’m able to clearly state what I’m trying to say with myimagery. In the end, I learned a lot from this project about the importance of clear communication when designing my posters." Anonymous, 2025