Moving Through the Year . . . with Gusto!
While this has been a challenging year, the students in Graphic Design have not let that stop their creativity! As a matter of fact, I almost think that it has helped them be able to channel the stresses of their daily lives into something positive. You should see some of the things they’ve done! There is so much to show you!
We are about halfway through learning Adobe Illustrator. The students have done a lot of different things, but a couple of my favorite pieces were Paper Art and Favorite Cartoon. In the Paper Art project, students learned some key elements of Illustrator that allow for a 3D effect in their artwork. In the Favorite Cartoon project, they got to choose their favorite cartoon character and redraw it in Illustrator. These kids are dynamite!
Just this week, we began our unit in logos. Students learn how they are made, the history of them, and if a logo has a hidden meaning behind it. There are a lot! Each student has been able to choose a logo to do a two-part project on. First, they’ll recreate the logo exactly as is using Adobe Illustrator. This will challenge them by utilizing the skills they’ve learned so far. Second, they will research the logo they chose and create a Google Slides presentation to share with the class. This has always been one of my favorite projects for the students.
In addition to learning about logos, we are amidst some serious design competitions!
The first competition is through SkillsUSA. Each year, SkillsUSA offers students the opportunity to design the year’s event T-Shirt and Pin. I had three students enter this competition! We wish all of them luck!!
We also did an in-house competition to decide which two will compete in the VALEES Graphic Design Student of the Year contest held in March. There was NO way I could possibly choose! We decided to use the students’ entries from SkillsUSA to determine who would move forward. A huge congratulations to Serena students Jimmy, Cara, and Sean, as they all did some outstanding work. Cara and Sean will move on and participate in the next competition!! Best of luck to all of them!!!
As an instructor, it is a pretty cool thing to see that when the tough get going, the going get creative. So inspiring!