Since COVID-19 restrictions happened quickly in mid-March, we shifted to online classes after Spring Break. Students were uprooted and challenged to work remotely—on laptops, outside their normal studio space, and without the day-to-day camaraderie of their classmates. Each student had to scramble quickly to make their Senior Show plans work in a digital format. With that in mind, students who had plans for large bold images on gallery walls and 3-D displays suddenly had to rethink and shape-shift their book designs into animations, information graphics into slide shows, and packaging projects into 3-D digital mock-ups. As graphic designers, we craft visual content to communicate messages. One outstanding project, Cell Wars, became an important tool as a tabletop game educating the players on how the human immune system defends the body against different types of pathogens. Who knew what a pathogen was six months ago? And who knew that COVID-19 would become a pathogen that will define the decade?

As up-and-coming professionals, this group of strong women responded to the challenges with a kind of ingenuity you would expect from highly creative minds. It was a privilege and honor to guide this class through our new reality. It was a valuable learning experience for all. I believe everyone looks forward to bright futures ahead.