Before The Fountain Institute, there was Art School Dropout

By Hannah Baker

Dear Reader,

In spring 2020, when the world had just gone remote, we ran a tiny experiment called Art School Dropout.

It wasn’t about UX or product design. We didn’t even know that’s where we’d end up focusing yet.

It was about exploring the overlap between art and design, and figuring out how to make learning online feel human, creative, and social.

We weren’t thinking about building a business yet.

We were just asking:
​“How can we offer something valuable to people right now?”

We invited a few friends, opened Mural (yes, before I found my obsession with Miro), and started experimenting.

We wanted to see what it would feel like to learn together, apart.

Part 1: Elements of Art & Design

We began with what art school always begins with: learning to see.

Through a Visual Thinking Strategies discussion, we asked simple but surprisingly deep questions:

From there, we explored the building blocks of visual language: color, line, shape, form, texture, value, and space.

Each person used these elements to communicate a feeling or idea purely through composition and color. No words, no right answers.

It was an exercise in slowing down, noticing details, and understanding how different visual choices can change what something feels like.

Part 2: Aesthetic vs. Conceptual

This session explored how we experience meaning through art.

We began with an Abstract Expressionism gallery activity, noticing how our own histories shaped what we saw and felt.

Together, we defined two slippery terms, aesthetic and conceptual.​
Where does beauty come from? What makes something meaningful, even when it isn’t beautiful?

We ended by ranking artworks along that spectrum, revealing how our values and backgrounds shape what we notice, and how we make sense of it.

Part 3: Conceptualizing the Problem Space

Here, we moved from looking at art to thinking through ideas.

Each person chose a topic, technology, identity, relationships, and explored how artists turn concepts into form: photo, sculpture, land art, performance, and beyond.

We discussed questions like:

• How does technology shape the choices we make every day?
• When do people adopt personas, and why?
• What role does context play in how meaning is created?

To inspire us, we researched different contemporary artists working with identity and technology, then reflected on how to develop our own ideas without imitation, building from inspiration, not copying.

It was an exercise in translating abstract thought into tangible form, how an idea becomes an object, an action, or a shared experience.

Part 4: “I’m sorry, did you say Critiques?”

Finally, we faced the most intimidating part of art school, critique.

We used Feldman’s method (describe → analyze → interpret → evaluate) to keep feedback thoughtful instead of personal.

It reminded us that critique, done right, isn’t about tearing down, it’s about learning to look, think, and speak with care.

Why this still matters

These early sessions weren’t really about art. They were about how we think, how we share, and how we make meaning together.

The same skills we practiced then, observation, interpretation, and articulation, are the same ones designers use to communicate problems, pitch ideas, or explain their work today.

It’s about metacognitive thinking:

How do we form opinions?
How do we express them without shutting others down?
How do we use objects, whether it’s a canvas, a prototype, or a presentation, to make complex ideas tangible?

And honestly, in what industry isn’t that important?

Sometimes I wonder if Art School Dropout still has a place in the world, a space for designers (and anyone, really) to rebuild their creative and critical foundations.

Would you want to take something like that?.

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Until next time!

Hannah Baker ​Facilitator & Co-Founder ​The Fountain Institute ​

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