Interaction Design · Project 1 of 3 · Weeks 1–5
GD 2 Project 2 : Narrative Pattern Triptych
From hand-gathered marks to a system that tells a story
FORMAT
Individual
WEEKS
METHODS
Rubbing transfer · Monoprinting · Analog mark-making · Adobe Illustrator pattern tile construction · System design
TAGS
Aesthetic Psychology, Design Education, Design Thinking
Why this project
Pattern is typically understood as surface — decoration applied to objects or spaces. This project treated pattern as a primary carrier of meaning. The motifs, their density and scale, the way they shifted across three panels — all of it had to be in service of a narrative the student had defined before a single mark was made.
The frottage requirement connected the project to a specific art-historical tradition — Max Ernst's use of rubbing as a surrealist technique for discovering unexpected images in surface texture — and to the course's broader analog mark-making methodology. Students who began with rubbings of bark, brick, concrete, and metal grating produced motifs with a tactile specificity that digital pattern tools cannot generate. The hand-made origin of the marks was visible in the final work. That visibility was pedagogically important: it established that the pattern system had an author, not just a source file.
The project has been replaced by the Logo Intensive because the curriculum needed a project that more directly bridged the single-mark thinking of Project 1 and the full brand system of Project 3. The pattern triptych was a strong project, but it feels like something that belongs within digital illustration. The logo intensive connects more directly to that thread: students design an identity for an organization working on their chosen issue, carrying their research from Project 1 into Project 2.
The Brief
PROJECT PROMPT
Design three coordinated repeating patterns that together tell a story. Each pattern represents one stage of a narrative arc — beginning, middle, end — and the three panels must be read as a sequence. They share a visual family but change across the triptych in a deliberate, legible way.
All source material begins by hand. You will gather textures from the physical world through rubbing and frottage before any digital work begins. The motifs you build come from what you find and draw — not from stock libraries or generated imagery.
Before sketching a single motif, define your narrative arc. The three patterns represent a progression — something that changes from panel 1 to panel 3. That change should be specific and describable in a single sentence.
DELIVERABLE
20 texture rubbings — photographed or scanned and submitted
Sketchbook showing 30+ hand-drawn motif sketches
3 final seamless patterns — Illustrator files (.ai)
Tile structure and color palette documentation
3–5 application mockups
System logic sheet: what is shared across the three panels, what changes, and why
Self-assessment — see separate assignment sheet
What I've learned from running this
The constraints of hand-gathered texture, seamless repeat, and a narrative arc imposed a level of intentionality. Students arriving at this project after doing frottage already had a developed visual vocabulary, making their motifs more personal than those created from scratch or digitally.
However, the project didn’t sufficiently connect to the social justice theme that now runs through the semester. A student creating a pattern triptych on transformation or decay produced strong formal work. The project created visually compelling patterns, but it seems to be more appropriate for a digital illustration course than for GD2. This gap became clearer as the social justice thread gained prominence in the course.
I replaced it with the Logo Intensive because the curriculum needed a stronger link between Project 1’s research and argument and Project 3’s brand system. A logo for a social justice organization directly emphasizes the issue, unlike the pattern triptych. A logo builds upon the Project 2 symbol system in GD1 and provides students more opportunity to focus on identity design.
The student work shown here reflects a stage in the curriculum’s development. The pattern triptych traded social connection for formal sophistication, while the Logo Intensive prioritized conceptual coherence over formal complexity, both valid choices.