ART 220 · Charleston Southern University · Fall 2026
Project 1. Editorial Illustration (3 weeks)
A publication has assigned you the art for one feature article: a featured illustration that runs as the hero at the top of the story, and two spot illustrations that run through it. The article runs on the web, in the newsletter, and as a card in a feed. Read the article, then design a hero that carries what it argues and two spots that belong to the same family: one palette, one drawing logic, one voice. Hand in production-ready vector files. You will learn the pen tool and curve construction, shape building and boolean operations, color as a reusable system, and how design principles work at editorial scale.
The run
Every due date is a class day. Work is turned in on Blackboard, presented in class, or both. The late-work policy is in the syllabus.
Project 1. Editorial Illustration (3 weeks)
A publication has assigned you the art for one feature article: a featured illustration that runs as the hero at the top of the story, and two spot illustrations that run through it. The article runs on the web, in the newsletter, and as a card in a feed. Read the article, then design a hero that carries what it argues and two spots that belong to the same family: one palette, one drawing logic, one voice. Hand in production-ready vector files. You will learn the pen tool and curve construction, shape building and boolean operations, color as a reusable system, and how design principles work at editorial scale.
- You are given
- Sixteen commissions, grouped by theme below. Each links to the full brief: the publication, its audience, the story, and what the desk will not accept. The story text and the photography that ran with it are in the packet handed out in class.You may propose your own article instead; clear it with me before the thumbnail review.
- The commissions
- You will learn to
- Translate a written argument into a visual concept, not a picture of the article's nouns.Generate range on purpose: many distinct concepts before any one gets rendered.Build a family: a hero that leads and two spots that belong to it, one palette and one voice across all three.Produce production-ready vector artwork a designer could place without touching it.Present the work and defend the concept in critique.
- What you make
- One featured illustration and two spot illustrations that read as a family: the hero leads, the spots echo its palette, drawing logic, and voice.The hero is built at 16 by 9 inches and runs full width at the top of the article. It has to survive the share-card crop and a thumbnail.Each spot is built at 3 by 3 inches and has to read at one inch.Vector only, drawn in Illustrator. Color built from global swatches, one palette across the family.One working file, three artboards at run size.
- Hand in
- One Illustrator file, lastname-p1.ai, built from the hand-in template: the hero and both spots on their artboards at run size, the proof artboard filled, and your thumbnail sheets placed on the thumbnails artboard. Named layers, global swatches, no stray points.
- Graded on
- Concept: the hero carries what the article argues, and each spot says something the article says. An image that only shows a noun from the article is illustration of the topic, not the idea.Formal resolution: the family reads together. The hero works at full width and in the share crop; the spots work at run size and at one inch.Craft: clean paths with economical points, named layers, global swatches, no stray points. The file is the evidence.Process: the thumbnail sheets show real range, three concepts and not three versions, and they get turned in with the final.
- Milestones
- Sep 3: p1a, at least 12 thumbnails across 3 distinct concepts, pinned up, the hero frame marked in each concept. Done means the room can name what each concept says.Sep 10: p1b, the hero and both spots roughed in one file with a working palette. Done means the family is visible, even if rough.Sep 17: final, handed in at run size, in the share crop, and at one inch. Done means the hand-in list is complete.
- AI use
- Ideation is Open: research, reference, moodboards and concept development, disclosed and cited in the department format. Output is Closed: the finished artwork is drawn by you.
ThuSep 3
Concepts and thumbnails
Bring the article you chose and at least twelve thumbnails across three different concepts, with the hero frame marked in each. We will pin them up and go through them as a group.
ThuSep 10
Vector drafts
The hero and both spots roughed in Illustrator, in one file, with a working color palette.
Final critique
The final loops screened and defended, in the exam slot the registrar assigns. The final project is due at the start. You talk about what the image is for, what you tried, and what you would do next.
Dec 8 to Dec 14
The last class
What is in the repository at the end of class is what is graded.
Finding the audience
Your personal statement points at the audiences you already know. Bring three candidates, each found in one of these four places, due Sep 9.
- A world you know
- A craft, a job you have held, a subject you are inside. You already know what the people in it buy and what they complain about.
- Your community
- A group or place you belong to. You can ask people directly what they need.
- Yourself
- You would use this product if someone sold it to you right. The risk is that you are the only one; the research will tell you.
- A wild card
- An audience that simply interests you. Held to the same evidence as the other three.
Problem framing
Problem framing is discovering and defining a problem your audience shares. It comes from design thinking, which puts people at the center of the work. Skip it and nobody can see what your product is for. Answer four questions, then compress the answers into one statement.
- Who
- Who has the problem, and how do you know?
- What
- What is the problem, and what signs show it?
- Why
- Why solve it, and what does it cost unsolved?
- Where
- In what circumstances does it show up?
Your problem statement is the four answers written as one short statement from the audience's side, due Sep 14.
The creative brief distills what the pitch settled: the client, the budget, the date, the audience, and the business problem. It is the reference every later phase answers to.
The deck
You prepare and present a deck of your research and initial insights: nine slides, three minutes.
01
Cover
The subject, one line saying what it is, your name and the date. No version number; the repository tracks versions.
02
The product
What it is and what it can do, compressed out of your problem statement. One slide. The source is on it.
03
The audience
Specific people, named the way you would name them to a client. Not a demographic bracket.
04
The problem
One sentence, set large, alone on the slide. If it needs a second sentence it is two problems.
05
The evidence
What you actually found, sourced. This slide decides whether the problem is real.
06
What they buy today
What the audience uses instead, and what those choices cost them.
07
The four questions
Who, what, why, and where, answered short. This is where a bad problem gets caught early.
08
What you do not know
The open questions, written down as questions. Every honest deck has some.
09
What the machine did
The three lines. Same format as everything else you hand in.
How you show your work
The work lives in one repository, with a running log of what you decided and what the machine did. How to set both up, and what a good entry looks like, gets its own note early in the term.
- The stand-up
- Work sessions open with three minutes each, screen up: what moved, what is stuck, what you will have done by next time. Participation is graded here. The rest of the session is yours to work in, with me in the room.
- Say what moved
- When a piece is re-presented, one line on what changed and why: critique, evidence, or the machine.
- What the machine did
- Three lines closing every piece you hand in: the tools you used by name; what you asked for and what came back; what you changed, cut or overruled. "None" is a complete answer.
- The rule under all of it
- Use AI on anything in this course, and defend everything you turn in as your own decision. Check every fact a model gives you; when one fails in the room, the error is yours.
How it is graded
Every piece of work is graded on the same four counts, each a quarter of that piece's grade. Participation and presentations are graded on their own; their weights, and each milestone's, are in the syllabus.
- Participation/Process · 25%
- Contributing to class discussions and critiques; improving work as a result of research and iteration.
- Concept · 25%
- Responding to the problem statement innovatively; thinking critically about work based on critiques, readings and discussions.
- Formal Resolution · 25%
- Making work that is aesthetically sophisticated, effective and appropriate given concept and context.
- Craft · 25%
- Taking care in manufacture of work; showing technical ability.