Inside/Outside: From the Basics to the Practice of Design, Second Edition

Ten Steps

Since the outset of my teaching career, I have given various assignments based upon ten parts or steps.

Sometimes I ask for ten stages in evolution of a particular shape or object. Or the series can consist of ten images unrelated in content but unified by some visual attribute.

Here the students bring into play principles and processes they have studied and applied in previous assignments: such things as figure/ground, field in motion, balance, form progression, and spatial connections.

The students respond to this ten-step challenge with inventive delight. I have a large collection of such sequences, covering an astonishing range of effects: charming, troubling, funny, bizarre, startling.

I am not certain how I arrived at the magic ...