I recently finished a Graphic Design course (AR2301) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; this was the last free elective I needed to graduate. One of the assignments was to illustrate 4 words from a list of 6 (I think) with each illustration using only four black squares. The assignment had to be done in Adobe Illustrator and the squares could be partially outside each container square.
The goal was to get us to “think visually” and operate within constraints to communicate with the viewer; in this case, we were communicating the meaning of words. For me, the only slightly tricky one was Congested. I will admit constantly tweaking the heights of the four squares in Increase to get them to look right.
It was a fun little exercise although I really can’t say I like Illustrator.