Designing Worlds: Big World design exercise

In the Foundation Diploma workshops, the turnaround time for most of the practical exercises is quite short. In most cases, we give our students only a couple of days to produce a detailed proof of concept. The final exercise in Designing Worlds is no exception to this. I give students a brief which requires them to interpret and visualise a short story. Over the course of two days each team will design key characters and an environment. Two days later, the students will have created characters in three dimensional form using wire, aluminium foil, sculpting clay and paint. I find that when people have a direct relationship to physical materials it offers them an opportunity for deep immersion in story. This can be a rare experience when most of us, most of the time are swimming in a soup of noise. Most students have never designed or created models before, so this is an extraordinary achievement.