The Hawk, the Squirrel, and the Oak Tree: a Definition of Systems Thinking for Graphic Designers

Eric Benson
6 min readJul 12, 2019

What is systems thinking?

Imagine a food chain. That’s a system!

For a moment, try to remember back to your first semester in college. (It wasn’t that long ago, was it?) Think about the foundational art and design courses you took that term and the vocabulary your instructor covered in the first few weeks to help you better understand the…

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Eric Benson

Associate Professor and Chair of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Co-founder of Re-nourish & Fresh Press Agri-Fiber Paper Lab.