Graphic Design + Ceramics

In my school, my graphic  design course functinos like an Art 1. It is not difficult to hit all the competencies while incorporating traditional art media with digital media. This year I've been conscious about pairing a digital project with each traditional media assignment. There were 2 parts to the introduction to ceramics, designed to cover techniques that the students would be able to pull from in future assignments with more choices. The first assignment was to make a cylinder which could function as a cup or a mug. This assignment covered slab building, pottery, art history, and surface design.

I started wondering about the history of graphic design in ceramics and when I searched, I found a wonderful resource, Guity Novin's a History of Graphic Design, and chapter 12 is Graphic Design in Ceramics. Bingo! Chapter 13 is on Native American Pottery so I showed some of those examples as well. I'm just pretty pumped to know about this resource!

Here is the slides presentation I showed the students so that I could group images by technique:

After the presentation, I demonstrated a variety of surface design techniques that I asked students to take notes on- sgraffito, underglaze, mishima, slip trailing, carving, and stamping. On the note sheet, the students wrote about which technique(s) they would like to try and then were able to sketch their idea.

The students had the rest of the 1st class to plan then 2-3 classes to construct their cylinders and complete the designs. I demonstrated pulling handles for anyone who was interested.

The design on the left used carving and underglazing. The cup on the right used carving, sgraffito, and mishima with the same repeated pattern.

This student incorporated a favorite quote in her ocean-themed mug.

Some inspiration from the Great Wave!

After the cylinders were complete, the students started on the digital part- designing a magazine cover that featured their cups.  

1. Students watched a video that broke down a magazine cover into parts and completed a worksheet I made to label them.

2. They wrote an analysis of a magazine cover they looked up.

3. Students photographed their cups.

4. Adobe Photoshop was used to create the magazine covers. (It was a quick assignment so I didn't want to tackle introducing new software.)

Here are some of the magazine designs

Computer Graphics Lessons, 1st Semester

One of the high school classes I teach is Computer Graphics. It's basically what I would have called Graphic Design (the name of 3 other classes is Graphic Design so that was confusing at first!) and it's part of the Career Tech Ed (CTE) program. This means that I'm trying to balance hitting the CTE competencies for the class with the national arts standards. This class has been really interesting to teach. I wasn't as excited about it as my other classes at first, though I have probably done more graphic design commissions than any other media or process, but though it's sometimes been a struggle to find that balance, I've enjoyed it quite a bit.

Our first big task at the beginning of the year was to prepare to take school pictures. The school district made the decision to have the art classes handle school pictures several years ago both as a financial decision and to give students experience. Pictures were scheduled for I think the second full week of school so we jumped right in to learning photography basics and practicing in the studio. We did some more fun photography practice with "light writing" and forced perspective, which we did not master by the way, before doing a trial run with the students posing, directing, and photographing.

After school pictures, we jumped into other design projects.

• Fall sports posters- I had students design posters with the fall sports team pictures and a schedule. It seemed like a simple task but there were many students who had never used any version of Photoshop before, so it was good to import a photo, resize, add text, etc.
• PTO shirt design- The elementary school principal asked me about designing a shirt for the PTO to sell for the elementary students and I passed that on to the Computer Graphics class since working with clients is a big part of the CTE program. This is when I first realized that the majority of the students didn't know how to come up with an idea that wasn't a copy of something off the internet.
• Recovering the Classics-  I loved this project. Students designed new covers for books in the public domain.
  
• Client Projects- I wanted students to get some real world design experience working with clients. They had several options from which to choose: designing a logo and program for the school musical, designing a business card for the director of transportation in the district, or designing a logo for the fitness center in one of the district's communities (they were having a logo design contest).
  
• Design for Awareness and Change- Students chose from a list of topics (or got another approved) and created posters that would raise awareness and/or inspire people to change. I will share more about this one later.
  
• Coloring Books for Adults- I wanted to play off of the popularity of coloring books geared toward adults and challenged students to create a page. The plan was to compile the designs into a book that we could print at school and even sell, but we just never got around to printing. I also learned that if you say "adult coloring books" teenagers tend to think of the inappropriate interpretation!
• Font choice and creation- Students learned about font choices and then created their own.
  
• 12 Days of Photoshop- I was inspired by Ian Sands here and did something similar to his 12 Days of Photoshop at the end of the semester.  I used some of the ideas that had been shared on AOE or the Art of Apex, but threw in some of my own. Here are the challenges students did (a couple took more than a day): Hand colored photo, Newimal, Type Mask Tool (post coming soon), It's Alive, Literal Interpretation, Disappearing with the Clone Stamp (post coming soon), creating masks or stencils.
  

I will be posting my 2nd semester projects soon.

Presidential Campaign Designs

Ever since I took the Visual Culture & Studio Practice class from UNK as part of my Master's program, I've been thinking about assignments that could come up in election seasons. With this year's presidential election generating crazy amounts of animosity, I thought it would be good to try to avoid drama in my classroom and get students to think about the actual qualities they would want in their ideal candidate, instead of their name or political party. My computer graphics class seemed like a good place to tackle presidential campaign designs.

Besides the big ideas of reading images and thinking about political issues and character traits instead of labels, I also wanted students to see the difference between logos and posters, because a lot of people tend to make logos that have way too much going on in the design! We did a critique toward the end of the assignment and gave suggestions to several students on how to correct that mistake.

Is Harambe a "thing" at your school like he is at mine?

The lesson plan is below, and you can also "keep" it on the smARTteacher. The slides presentation, planning sheet, and rubric are linked at the very bottom.

Katie Morris

Jackson Heights High School

Lesson Title: Presidential Campaign Design Package

Rationale: This lesson is intended to teach students graphic design principles, how to visually communicate a message, and how to “read” images in our visual culture.

Essential Questions: How do images affect us? How do you read an image? What is the goal of a campaign poster? How can we design images to communicate a message?

Objectives

1. The students will discuss a variety of campaign posters from the past & present.
2. The students will evaluate the effectiveness of campaign package designs- logos, posters, and websites.
3. The students will brainstorm qualities they would want in an ideal presidential candidate and the opposites.
4. The students will create a campaign package including a logo and poster that communicates the qualities they would want in a president.
5. The students will participate in peer critiques about their work.
6. The students will write an artist statement explaining their idea and purposes for their design choices.
7. Optional: The students will work in groups to plan, direct, act in, and edit a campaign ad for a made up presidential candidate.

Resources: Slides presentation, planning sheet, rubric

Procedure: This lesson is estimated to take 10 class periods, or more if the students create a video.

Day 1: The teacher will start with a disclaimer that though we will be discussing political ads, we will focus on the design choices and what they communicate, not making negative comments about politicians we don’t agree with. Discussions should be respectful and on-topic.

The class will view a slides presentation featuring different campaign ads, historic and modern. They will discuss design elements and what/how they communicate. What do the designs communicate about what kind of president they would be?

Next, students will brainstorm a list of qualities they look for or would want in an ideal candidate, as well as their opposites. The class will share their thoughts and discuss. The teacher will explain the assignment: design a campaign package- logo, poster, possibly a website (blog), and video- for someone who is NOT currently a politician. The idea is to focus more on the ideas about what would make a good president instead of on a real person. The poster designs could be sincere or satirical- using the opposite of the good qualities to poke fun or make a point.  The teacher will remind students of the differences between a logo and a poster. A logo is much simpler and more versatile. The logo could be used on a t-shirt, bumper sticker, website, poster, anything that will brand the campaign. The logo should be incorporated into the poster design.

The students will brainstorm ideas using the planning sheet, sketch, and begin.

Days 2-6: Student work time. The teacher will circulate to check progress and help troubleshoot.

Day 7: The students will participate in a peer critique. Each student will share their progress and consider the feedback of others in the class.

Days 8 & 9: Student work time.

Day 10: When the students are finished they will self-assess with a rubric and write an artist statement.

Later: The teacher will set up a display of the printed posters. The class will view and discuss the exhibit. The teacher will ask how the display could affect the students in school who see it.

National Visual Arts Standards

VA:Cr1.2.HSI

I can use contemporary practices to plan and make art or design about an aspect of present-day life.

VA:Cr3.1.HSI

I can examine, reflect on, and plan revisions for works of art and design in progress by applying relevant criteria.

VA:Pr6.1.HSI

I can discuss how an exhibition can impact awareness of social, cultural, and political beliefs and understandings.

VA:Re7.2.HSI

I can analyze how visual imagery can affect understanding of the world.

Assessment: The students will self assess using a rubric. Their scores will be combined with the teacher’s scores for the final grade.

Slides presentation: https://docs.google.com/a/jhcobras.net/presentation/d/1rMcUfA-kQ2CdwIUujROXUIpRGGk54G0WGyZoVcV4zv4/edit?usp=sharing

Planning sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bbzplsxWl1ee-FwR6FNgR7chSepbi14Nc4DWD_n7V7U/edit?usp=sharing


Rubric: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kBLdS_g41l77XIPkdkUNiyxgDiuNbTAwSWBr3EtLL4c/edit?usp=sharing

Make Art. Save Art.

I got an email this summer about Make Art. Save Art.  a collaborative campaign by DoSomething.org and Hewlett-Packard about the importance of Art Education and thought I would share!  The Make Art. Save Art. contest asks youth to create and submit PC wallpapers for a chance to win a grand prize of $5000 and 5 HP Pavilion dv6z laptops for their school art program. Finalists will also win HP laptops as well.


Here are the steps off of the site.
The Make Art Phase

1. From August 2 to September 30, create a PC wallpaper design to show your artistic talent. Photography, graphic design, and traditional visual art are all eligible.
2. Submit your wallpaper design and tell us about the importance of art education and why art should stay in schools! (You must be 25 years old or younger to participate)

The Save Art Phase

1. Starting September 1, share your design with your friends through Twitter and Facebook. NOTE: My students are too young to enter since you are supposed to be 13 to have a Facebook account.  Well, I guess I don't know the rules about Twitter but this is probably more appropriate for middle school or high school.
2. Get your friends to share your design with their Twitter and Facebook friends too.
3. You can also share your design with local representatives to advocate for art education!
4. Each "share" counts toward your chance to win.

The Judging Phase

1. The five wallpaper designs with the most "shares" will win sweet prizes!
2. A panel of expert judges will review the 5 most “shared" designs and choose the Grand Prize winner.
3. Winners will be announced October 12!

P.S. There is some great advocacy information on their website too! http://www.dosomething.org/make-art-save-art/art-ed

#StyleChallenge

Today I want to show you an instagram challenge that I used as a lesson for my students during continuous learning. I assigned this to my graphic design students and it was later a choice for 7th graders and the rest of the high school students. 

I thought the students would enjoy this since they can use shows they already like as inspiration. I think I will use this next year when we are hopefully back at school but I will probably make some type of planning sheet where students can add images from the style they are researching and take notes on the characteristics of the style. I think this is a good way to learn about being inspired by a style without just copying it. As much as I explained, I still had a few students just draw the regular characters from the show, or choose a character that looked like them without making changes. Working from home, you take what you can get. But I think this lesson has potential!

My example of the #StyleChallenge- I want to redo the Bob's Burgers drawing but I'm pretty happy with the rest.

Click HERE for the Google Doc I used to explain the project. I included lots of examples of other artist's challenges.

What is the Style Challenge?

The style challenge was started by an instagrammer, @beautifulness87. The idea is to draw yourself or a character in the style of different cartoons.

Some popular styles 

• The Simpsons
• Powerpuff Girls
• Your own style
• Realistic
• Disney
• Tim Burton
• Dragon Ball Z
• Adventure Time
• Invader Zim

Rationale:

This assignment will show your ability to understand what makes a style and apply that to drawing a self portrait. You will learn to reference images while creating something new and not just copying. 

Your Assignment:

Create at least 2 self portraits in the styles listed above or any of your favorite cartoons. They can be on one page or multiple. You can do more than 2!

Supplies: whatever you have available at home.

I completed my challenge digitally using the free app Adobe Draw. You can use an app, pencil and paper, markers, colored pencils, whatever supplies you can find. If you don’t have drawing paper or copy paper, you can draw on the back of something, a piece of cardboard, the inside of a cereal box, etc. be flexible and get creative.

DO YOUR BEST WITH WHAT YOU HAVE AVAILABLE

Turn in: Either a photograph of your drawing(s) or image file that you upload to Google Classroom.

*9 Common Mistakes When Photographing Your Artwork with an iPhone 

(And How to Fix Them)*

National Visual Arts Standards

VA:Cr1.1.HS1- I can generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

Graphic Design CTE Competencies

5. Create and produce content.

6. Create and refine design concepts.

12. Create graphical images.

16. Use available reference tools as appropriate.

Digital Op Art

I can't believe I haven't posted this project before! I tried it for the first time with my Computer Graphics class this year and it was a keeper. We covered art history, graphic design, and practiced some new skills in photoshop.
When I show the first slide without the Op Art title, I ask the students if they know what that style of artwork is called or if it reminds them of anything to gauge their prior knowledge. We talk about the "mother" and "father" of Op Art and what we can learn to apply to graphic design.


Next, I demonstrate some techniques in photoshop that the students can try out but ultimately they choose what style of Op Art they want to use. We talk about color combinations, grid/ruler tools, gradient tools, distortion filters, etc.
The technique that the most students want to use is to put text into their Op Art. I recorded a quick video this afternoon of the steps we use. I obviously need to practice screen recording since I flubbed the beginning and end, but at least it will be handy to direct students to that video when they've forgotten a step!


Here are some of the student examples!