book by Bryan Rudell
2d Digital Design foundations classes were introduced to the poetry of Rumi, the 13th Century mystic whose work transcends national and ethnic borders. Rumi has had a significant influence on both Persian and Turkish literature throughout the centuries and is now one of the most widely read poets in America. Students were asked to select a translated version of one of Rumi’s works and create a digital word + image interpretation of their own. Final versions take the form of mixed media accordion books.
Rumi Links:
Rumi, the 13th century philosopher has been commemorated around Turkey and the world with various activities and performances since the beginning of this year which has been declared by the United Nations Educatinal, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the ”Year of Mevlana.”
A Celebration of Rumi in Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalal_ad-Din_Muhammad_Rumi
http://www.rumi.org.uk/poems.html
book by Amber Parker
View showcase of student books from Fall 2006
Book by Jared Wick
Book by Breanna Caywood
Rumi celebration in Turkey
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=84636
Turkey celebrates Rumi’s birthday with a giant Sema performance
Friday, September 28, 2007
ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism together with Konya’s directorate of culture, governor and residents will hold festivities Sept. 30 to celebrate the 800th birthday of famous Anatolian philosopher Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, tourism and culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay said yesterday.
Rumi, the 13th century philosopher has been commemorated around Turkey and the world with various activities and performances since the beginning of this year which has been declared by the United Nations Educatinal, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the ”Year of Mevlana.”
Tulip & Arabesque Project Blog 
Rumi poetry was not something I was familiar with before this semester. Being able to learn the background of the poems helped me create a mood that would reflect the words. It was difficult to begin the process as the inspiration was coming from an exterior source (Rumi). It was almost like having a client. I was given the tools to work with and I had to create a successful piece to match the literature. The freedom of design was a fun addition I was very symmetrical in my previous project–the digital carpets. In the end, I was able to produce an image that the words created in my head.
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Rumi was such an influential man, and his poems are such an inspiration for anyone. Being able to create a blend of his feeling and ours onto one project was something I was never familiar with when working with art. I have become comfortable with creating something from my mind and conveying that onto a canvas. To have words detailed in front of you, describing them with art can be difficult. This was a great project to push our limits, but yet be confined to a simple poem that now our art describes.
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Rumi poetry can be a chance to do some deep thinking, but it may take some time to find a poem that is fitting for each person. Words can inspire many people in many ways and Rumi’s poems have a way to look at the world and ones self to find what may be over looked in our daily lives.
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I didn’t know much about Rumi poetry before this class. All I really knew was a lot of his poetry is about love and life. I really like how people took and can take art and turn it into more then just pictures. Turn it into actual poetry. This project was a great chance to let us show who we are and how we feel about life by taking Rumi’s words and putting our own artwork.
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I think doing this Rumi Poem was amazing. I liked the free feeling I had when doing this project. It let me look deeper into the poem and reflect how I felt on it through graphics and images. I had a lot of fun doing this one and really enjoyed putting this project together.
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I thought the rumi books were really cool. I enjoyed working with the context of a poem, while incorporating a visual stylization of my interpretation. It was a challenge, but I feel the final products were great. It was nice to do something different, embracing other cultures’ customs.
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Ove all this was a good prodject. I liked how lose the peramaters were. The timeline was a little restrictive and so was the manner of how we had to print out our works. I would of loved to have a second go at this prodject with more time. It was nice to let loose and to see what other poeple’s styles are.
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I think that the opportunity to interpret text through imagery is a great experience. This project gave me a chance to really experament with photoshop, along with using imagery that I had previously never found a use for. Using your own imges or photos to interperet something like this is a great experience, I had lots of fun with this project.
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My rumi poem was about love and what it feels like to be in love. I used ballet images becasue I thought they portrayed the text well. I also tried to use bright colors because the poem is happy. I think all in all my book turned out reallyl nice.
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The Rumi Poetry has given me an opportunity to work both with Photoshop and also mixed media. I also have come to appreciate more of the global poetry. I have also enjoyed seeing the creativity of fellow students as they’ve put much work into their own projects.
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I found the rumi project very interesting. I wish we would have had more time to work on them. I would have liked to use collage. My poem was about finding a religion and choosing one. It was about spirituality. I think we all once question our religions and I thought it was inspirational. This project was better than the long carpet assignment!
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COMMENTS FROM FALL 2006 students:
This was probably my favorite assignment of the semester because there were so many different things you can do and ways you could approach this assignment. I also liked it because of the typographical portion of it dealing with the poems because I enjoy doing typography.
Posted by: Zach Kampa | December 14, 2006 01:53 PM
The poetry assignment was my favorite so far this semester. I’ve done a lot of work with viusal poetry in the past, but this was my favorite one thus far.
Posted by: Devin Tullis | December 14, 2006 02:19 PM
This assignment was defiently a challenge to incorporate the words of the poetry but without making it too obvious, and the freedom you gave us to do this assignment with was excellent! My favorite project of the year!
Posted by: Daniel Joseph McCarthy | December 14, 2006 03:16 PM
I really liked this assignment. I am not into poetry that much but it was fun to interpret them visually in the accordion book. It was fun because you can play with the different pages and when you look and it in different ways it looks totally different. It was a great way to end the class and it was more laid back and we could interpret them how ever we wanted to, which I really liked. Personally I think this was one of the better projects that we did and I am glad I had a chance to do it.
Posted by: Kristi Hendrickson | December 14, 2006 04:43 PM
I loved this assignment!! I had fun reading all the poems and choosing one that would work best for me! This assignment really let me try new things in photoshop and I am really happy with the results. I was able to incorporate some of my own drawing by scanning it in!! This was definitely a nice way to end the semester!
Posted by: Natalie St.Marie | December 14, 2006 09:08 PM
The poetry project is my favorite one! I am glad it is the last assignment because it is fun to do and has not added to the stress of finals week. Also, this project gives us a lot more freedom to use the programs and features we enjoy most!
Posted by: Sara O’Donnell | December 15, 2006 07:52 AM
The poetry assignment was my favorite one. I felt like we had more freedom to do what we want with this assignment which was really nice. I also liked the overall presentation of the assignment.
Posted by: Amanda Planting | December 15, 2006 09:25 AM
I am really enjoying this poetry book, too. Not big on Rumi poetry, but the project is pretty cool I like that we produce something tangible and physical, even through the digital process. Really does open a whole vista of possible ways to integrate digital design into traditional art mediums. Right cool. MOJO baby….!
Posted by: todd defoe | December 15, 2006 11:17 PM
I really enjoyed the Rumi poetry project. It has probably been my favorite project of all of them this semester. There is a lot of space for creativity and personalization with this assignment. I also love to work with typography, so this project has been extremely fun!
Posted by: Amber Warren | December 16, 2006 05:16 PM
The Rumi project has been rewarding because we have had the freedom to choose what we want to incorporate into our accordion book. We can use previous work from the semester to tie into this project, along with new design. This is a project which I have enjoyed.
Posted by: Carrie Rust | December 17, 2006 02:32 PM
I think the Rumi project has been my favorite project. It leaves the most room for creativity so we can interpret and make the books look however we want. I’ve always been somewhat interested in poetry and being introduced to Rumi gives me a whole new hobby to indulge myself in. Thanks for that Joellyn!
Posted by: Alison Smith | December 17, 2006 10:06 PM
I think using poetry as inspiration for this assignment really helped me go in a different direction with my designs. The simplicity of the poetry helped me tone down my color palette and really try to create more dynamic positive and negative space. This was the most fun I had on a project the whole semester. On a sad note, the bookstore sold out of accordian book kits and I wasn’t able to purchase one. good luck to anyone else who has to make their own book!
Posted by: Sarah Glesner | December 18, 2006 08:15 PM
I was really happy that we were given so much freedom on this project. I gave me the chance to expand on my creativity. I also like the fact that we are presenting our projects in such a different way. The accordian books gives us even more room to make our Rumi projects unique.
Posted by: Brianna LaFerriere | December 18, 2006 09:22 PM
This project gave me the opportunity to try out a digital design with something more then just a printed piece of paper. The Rumi poetry was very interesting to me and gave a great base to make a project off of. It was a great assignment that gave me the freedom to do a digital project using the tools we have learned.
Posted by: David Pollitt | December 19, 2006 04:32 PM
The Rumi project was probably one of my favorite ones. It did not take me much time at all but I really like how it turned out. I thought it was really neat to see what our work looked like when you took it to another step other than just a printed piece of artwork.
Posted by: James Sigl | December 19, 2006 06:40 PM
I really enjoyed working on this project. I gives us a whole new level of creativity by incorporating the poem with the book. We were enabled to be very free with this book and do basically whatever we wanted. The Rumi book was a very nice pick for the final!
Posted by: Tracy Mikulich | December 19, 2006 09:45 PM
This was my favorite project this semester! It was fun to turn my digital illistrations into a 3 dimensional piece of artwork. I also enjoyed playing with the typography and the freedom of design I had. Talk about saving the best for last!
Posted by: Taylor Lyons | December 20, 2006 02:14 AM
This project was by far my favorite one of the semester. We were really free to do what ever we wanted with it and be very creative. Basing the design on a Rumi poem was fun to do for a final.
Posted by: Katie Lemke | December 20, 2006 03:05 AM
This was a fun project. I enjoyed making something personal. I used many of the items learned from the class. The final outcome I loved. It’s my husband’s Christmas stocking present. Thanks for everything you taught me.
Posted by: Gina Grensing | December 20, 2006 12:01 PM
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