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For one environmental design course, adjusting to remote-learning due to the novel coronavirus pandemic has encouraged a positive educational opportunity. Associate Professor Susannah Drake asked students in her 1002 tech course to design educational posters providing information relating to COVID-19. 

“They did an amazing job!” Drake said. 

Fourteen students submitted their own version of how to overcome the pandemic, from handmade drawings and paintings to digital graphics. 

For Joshua Dusbabek, his poster was designed to illustrate a message titled “Til the Light Burns Out.” 

“The statement I am attempting to make is perhaps that one of the amazing things COVID-19 has done for us is made us realize the importance of the little things,” Dusbabek said. 

He described the “little things” as activities such as hanging out with friends and enjoying the world “around us.”

“The questions this piece begs, however, is will we be able to have a greater value for the little things after this is all over?” Dusbabek said. “Or, is our appreciation for the little things and our profound sense of equality going to be short-lived?” 

Tianyi Dai, another student in Drake’s tech course, took a different approach for her poster’s message. At first glance, a viewer will notice illustrations of healthcare workers chasing away virus “blobs” off the page of the poster. 

“I wanted to say that there are so many heroes fighting for us,” Dai said. “They are trying [their] best to keep us safe.”

Other students used graphical cues to highlight the severity of the pandemic and to promote prevention guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

“I created my poster in Photoshop,” Kayla Vaartjes, an architecture major said. “I used the compositional principles of asymmetry, tension, contrast and figure-ground.”

Following the completion of the assignment, Drake encouraged her students to submit their work to the , a competition seeking work that promotes public health and safety messages, as well as messages that promote mental health, well-being and social change.