Welcome back fellow Pacers! The Fall 2026 Semester is officially underway, which means I will have a whole new batch of Student Spotlights to feature! As I get to know my new classmates, however, I have a few things to share about my own work!

I am beyond excited to start this next set of classes! As a junior, I am taking Conceptual Design Thinking, Introduction to Typography, and History of Visual Communications. All of these classes will prove quite the challenge, and I am very excited to roll my sleeves up and begin the coursework.

I am particularly excited by Conceptual Design Thinking, thus far. We have started the work on our Mobius Strip Project. A mobius strip is a continuous loop that only has one side, made from a strip of paper. It’s honestly a really trippy phenomenon to describe. For this project, we have to design three different mobius strips with various ideas.

For me, I have been trying to think of concepts that match the ‘infinite’ quality of a mobius strip. I want the strip’s shape itself to influence the meaning behind my piece.

So far, I have really only started my thumbnails. I have been working on a lot of different ideas, but my favorite so far has been this use of the themes of life and death. I plan on having two identical figures — one dead, one alive — who will be on either side of the strip that eventually becomes the one-sided mobius strip. Between the use of the mobius strip and the dichotomy between life and death, I feel like my design will serve as a poignant reminder of the interconnection and fragility between these themes. In some ways, nothing is more certain than life and death. I am also experimenting with what media I want to use for this strip.

I have also been eyeing this thumbnail I have been working on that uses the Greek myths of Icarus and Atlas. I really like the differences in these stories. For Icarus, I focus on how in his myth, he flies too close to the sun in his escape from captivity, and ends up perishing because of it. Meanwhile, Atlas is trapped beneath the burden of holding the sky. Placing the two myths together, I felt that their stories had a nice interplay. Icarus is destroyed by his own love of freedom and ambition. Atlas, on the other hand, represents a man destroyed by a punishment he cannot escape. Together, their stories weave a case for the need to be moderate, and warns of either extreme. With this mobius strip, I am debating imitating Greek pottery, but I think I might need a more fully rendered sky to make this work.

As for my third mobius strip, I am not quite sure what I will do. I have a lot of thumbnails, but I have to work on narrowing them down or coming up with some more ideas.

Overall, I am super excited to be working on this project. I am no good at spatial awareness and reasoning, so this project has been a lot to wrap my head around. I am ecstatic to see where this takes me despite this. It’s been a while since I have been truly excited to work on a project, especially for school. I am beyond happy to see that for the first time in months, I have wanted to work on these drawings. Maybe my art block is finally starting to break up?

Thank you so much for reading this! I hope you enjoy this next semester of writers as much as I have!

Best,

Rebecca Prowse