A group of 16 high school students spent July 10-24 participating in Design Condensed at Iowa State.

Design Condensed is the first summer high school design camp held by the College of Design.

The students participating in the camp came from Iowa, surrounding states and Puerto Rico. Although they are all from various backgrounds, each student shares a passion for design.

“I like design a lot,” said Lanea Ramaeker, junior at Creston High School. “I like that [your design] can be whatever you want it to be and it can’t be wrong because it’s your design.”

Ramaeker and other students from Creston came to the camp to design a park for their school’s library. The students decided to make a swirl, with the center being where people sit.

“The library needed more space, so we were asked to design a little pocket park,” said Emma Johnson, sophomore at Creston High School. “It’s fun to think about how what you make will be used by others.”

The students stayed in Eaton Hall and attended classes all day. The classes ranged from Photoshop design to soundscaping.

“I really liked soundscaping,” said Megan Rupiper, senior from Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, Neb. “We went into nature and it started raining. We drew what it sounded like, not what it looked like.”

While Rupiper liked soundscaping, Coralis Rodriquez, senior in high school from Puerto Rico, enjoyed Mark Making.

“[The teacher] just gives you random objects and you make a design,” Rodriquez said. “It’s really cool.”

Debra Satterfield, director of art and design, taught Mark Making at the camp.

“[The camp] was meant to be a way for high school students to experience the design core program, the type of things they would do if they came to the College of Design as a freshman,” Satterfield said. “We were focusing on those kind of experiences, [which] would be 2-D and 3-D design principles and learning experiences.”

Satterfield hopes the design camp helped the students learn more about design and their future in design.

“The purpose of this camp, in my opinion, is just to give these students a really terrific experience in design,” Satterfield said. “You want those students to come away knowing more about what design is and really being able to envision themselves in the College of Design and in a design career.”

While learning is an important aspect to the camp, the social part of the camp is also very important to the students. Design Condensed allows students with the same interests to interact and connect.

“At home, I’m kind of an oddball, carrying around a sketchbook wherever I go,” said Drew McGuire, senior from English Valleys Junior/Senior High school. “There are a lot of people like me here, which is pretty neat.”