Editor's Letter: Design

As an art educator, you are likely to be more consciously aware of design in your environment than the general public. Design is a word that is bantered around quite a bit in art education, but its meaning depends on the context, on whether it is used as a noun or a verb. One of the best broad definitions I have found for design is from Shakuro, a digital design agency: ‘Design is picturing things using the imagination.’ How can your students create good designs sparked by imagination?

Lost and Found

The theme of recycling is a familiar one in art: consider Duchamp’s readymades, Picasso’s junk sculptures, Warhol’s soup cans, assemblage art, and countless other works and processes. In fact, much of art history is a form of recycling in which artists take inspiration from artists before them and channel those influences into new art movements. In this lesson, I wanted students to use found objects to make new artistic compositions connected to a form of art that they would then recycle into new art.

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Opening the Door to Digital Design

After classroom doors shuttered in March of 2020, virtual teaching changed how we delivered our art curriculum to our students. As I scrambled to create individual art kits, sought funding from donors, and developed rigorous art lessons from home, I stumbled upon Google Drawings. While I found it clunky at first, I pushed myself to recreate as many classroom lessons as possible using this digital design tool. An amazing door opened as my students discovered many new ways to create art without traditional art supplies.

Elements & Principles Scavenger Hunt

Each year, I incorporate the elements of art and principles of design into my curriculum. I use the elements and principles throughout the school year, but to introduce them, I like to find a fun and engaging way to really excite my student in their learning. This school year, since we were starting out virtually, I thought of a way to incorporate photography in the virtual setting using the elements and principles.

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Design Boards

My idea for this lesson was inspired by a visit to Watkins College of Art in Nashville during our Tennessee Art Education Association’s state conference. While walking to one of my sessions, I noticed some college student design boards lining the hallways, so I took some photos and filed away the idea. I knew I wanted to connect this as an extension to the lesson in one-point perspective drawing that my seventh-grade students were completing while I was away at the conference.

The Community Circle Project

The circle is a symbol of unity, wholeness, connection, and inclusion. The Community Circle Project employs the symbol of the circle and the themes it evokes as a creative focal point. Participants engage in art-making as well as meaningful conversation about their responses to the prompt. The goal is for everyone to see commonalities, shared humanity, and the desire for good in their lives, which, ideally, leads to wishing for good in the lives of others. The project can also be used for relaxation and expressing emotions.

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Isometric Interiors

The notion that an isometric illustration can be created using basic shapes and a straightforward process made the idea of engineering a project for my entry-level computer graphics students very appealing. After four years of experimentation, I curated a project chock-full of important skills every beginning design student should know. An isometric project is my preferred way to segue students from previous projects that focused primarily on flat shapes, flat value, and color systems to create the illusion of form on a 2D surface.

Cereal Box Design

A high-school graphic design classroom is both a laboratory and a think tank. It’s a place where students can process, analyze, respond to, experiment with, and create visual design. What better way to introduce commercial design than with an assignment that combines typography, photography, cartooning, and logo and game design? In this lesson, students invented an original breakfast cereal and imaginary food company. They created a mascot and logo using Photoshop and Illustrator, learned how to create 3D lettering, photographed food, and created a game for the back of their cereal box.

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Advocacy Action Planning

Setting goals for your advocacy efforts is essential. What do you hope to accomplish with your efforts? Keep your goals to a manageable number and express them in a clear and straightforward manner. State your goals so they are measurable and articulate expected outcomes for each goal—this will lay the groundwork for effective evaluation of your efforts.

Pop Culture Miniatures

The word “miniature” conjures images of tiny cars, dollhouse furniture, or action figures. It has also been applied to various fine art forms for centuries, and it certainly applies to the work of Steve Casino, “Painter of Nuts.” Casino is an artist and full-time toy inventor who spent years working in a variety of media until he hit upon his trademark, the peanut.

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