Thinking Through Making (Online)

"Thinking Through Making Online," was an invited talk at a design agency, sharing how a hands-on, studio-based experimentation curriculum on the Graduate Diploma Graphic Design was adapted for remote learning during COVID-19.

I address the challenge that graphic design process often feels like mysterious "magic" that's difficult to teach. I explore the insights that drove our own iterative approach to curriculum which centres around the idea that "making is a kind of thinking" – what you create with your hands differs from what you create with your mind. The goal is to separate thinking from making initially, then learn to use both in tandem.

Our designed curriculum uses rules-based exercises with tight constraints and time limits. Every workshop follows the same pattern: warmup, generate, discuss, agree principles, select, refine, then take away tasks. Adapting physical workshops to online settings required creative solutions: moving from physical tools like scalpels to digital ones that still allowed for rapid development, using collaborative platforms like Miro, and implementing screen recording to capture authentic process.

The impact has been significant – students learned that constraints create possibilities rather than limitations, and they develop transferable concepts that they apply across different projects.

The session generated discussions about how the methods for structured experimentation and constraint-based creativity can address professional challenges around efficiency, client education, and breaking through creative blocks.