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This is a series of inventive design problems for elementary and middle school students. Divided into five parts (environmental, object, communication and experiential design and a "doodlelines" section), art teachers can copy individual pages to use in the classroom. Sprial-bound, printed copies will be available in the Fall 2015.
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Environmental Object
Communication Experiential
Design for Elementary & Middle School
By Julia Healy
Introduction
By Julia Healy, MFA, SDA
My goal in writing this book was to help harried art teachers embed authentic design education into their curriculum. After many, many years in K-‐12 and college art teaching, I have found that using humor is an unbeatable weapon in engaging students of all levels. Another insight I have had over the years is that very often lessons that have been developed for a particular age group can be applied to other levels with a bit of tweaking. So use these “sparks” as you will and don’t stick to the script if you can better tailor them for your student population. These pages can be copied and handed out as “Do-‐Nows” or warm-‐ups, regular assignments or homework. I would urge you, however, to make sure you leave some time for reflection and sharing somewhere in your schedule. It’s something that is often skipped for lack of time, but it is key to helping your students learn from each other, gain confidence in their ideas and become more adept at verbalizing visual concepts. It doesn’t have to take too long and you don’t have to share every student’s work. Ask open-‐ended questions such as “What was surprising about…? What did you notice…? Did anyone just start sketching without knowing what you were going to do…what was that like?” Don’t turn reflection into you pointing out and describing what the solutions are or making it into a factual exercise where there is a right and wrong answer. Like many artist/teachers, I have definite ideas about art materials. I think simple is often better, and many of these problems can be done with soft pencils (4B or so) or black markers. The goal is to for your students to “think on the paper”, so don’t necessarily expect finished, beautiful bulletin-‐board-‐worthy works of art! Writing is encouraged and notes and explanations often help and support the designing process. You may or may not want students to color their work. Don’t turn the coloring into busy work, however. Make it an essential part of aims or else leave it out. Hopefully, these problems will help open your students’ eyes to the world of design in their everyday lives. Thinking them up was fun for me. I hope you and your students will enjoy some of the nuttiness and brain-‐stretching that is contained herein.
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Chapter 1: Environmental Design This section concerns what is around us—what we call the “Built Environment.” This covers everything from city planning, indoor and outdoor public spaces, transportation centers, parks and architecture of all kinds. While not strictly-‐ speaking “environmental” in the typical sense, I have taken the liberty of adding a few two problems to this section that might be called “Designing from scratch,” since they didn’t fit in the other three categories at all. (They are the last two problems in this section.) Many of the assignments ask for students to “explain” if they need to and this is where integrating writing comes into play. Also, since much of environmental design is about architecture, you will want to make sure your students learn vocabulary words “architecture,” “architect” and perhaps some terms like “support,” “column” “pediment”, “story”, “roofline”, etc. Students will come to understand that buildings are designed and based on plans. Many factors go into how something looks, not the least of which is what the function of something will be, and it is important for them to process this. If your students look around the classroom, they will see that everything has been designed: desks, chairs, lighting, storage, etc. Someone determined how high the ceiling was going to be and made choices as to where the windows were going to be placed and how large they would be. Even a mobile classroom has been “designed” and someone attempted to make it look and function within a limited amount of space. Feel free to tamper with these problems and change them around any way you wish. I hope they spark the imaginations of your students and result in amazing solutions!
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Your school has decided to add a new wing for its new program “School and Learning is Fun, Fun and More Fun!” They have hired you to design what it should look like and what features it should have in it. Make a floor plan and an illustration of the exterior.
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If you had to make a chair one could actually sit on (and not break) and only had 10 cardboard boxes, a roll of duct tape, a bag of sand and 20 empty soda cans, could you do it? Draw your plan.
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The Pyramid Club of Las Vegas have hired you to create their new headquarters. You have an unlimited budget. What would you come up with?
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You have been hired (for a very large fee), to design the town Spook House for next year. What might you put into it? What would the floor plan look like? Draw and explain your ideas…
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Ceilings are sometimes boring. Design one that would be anything but boring to you.
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The inside of the “Spoiled Poodle Doghouse” is very elegant and you wouldn’t believe what it looks like! Draw it.
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Draw a close-‐up of a “See-‐Through Garden” in which all plants, trees, bugs, butterflies, birds, etc. are completely glass-‐like.
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A famous movie director has asked you to design the sets for her new film, “The Saddest Village in the World.” She wants the buildings to look very, very sad. Draw your ideas!
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You have been asked by the Cat Fancier Society to create a new look for a breed of long-‐haired cat. What might you come up with? Draw the picture that cat groomers across the country will use to copy this new, strange, look.
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The indie band named the “Bad Hairdo Quartet” need some terrible hairstyles. Go wild!
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Chapter 2: Object Design
Objects are all around us, and we take many of them for granted. The cup or glass you drink out of has been designed. Even a natural object such as a pouring gourd may have been carved or whittled to create a more functional and decorated object. The following problems are designed to get our students noticing and thinking about the things they use and see everyday—their phones, sneakers and toys. Students are asked to come up with solutions for various scenarios that will require them to think about function as well as the aesthetic concerns of style or beauty. Encourage students to make several sketches that will show various sides and angles of their designs. A bird’s eye view, an eye-‐level view and a three-‐quarter view will communicate different information to the viewer. Sometimes one idea or sketch morphs into another, which can morph into another. Explain the process of developing an idea, by improving or changing it and working to perfect their final product or concept. Just because you start out with one shape, doesn’t mean you end up with it. One off shoot of this section might be a follow-‐up lesson where students make actual models of their ideas. Using self-‐hardening clay or other sculptural materials extends the process to the third-‐dimension, much the way professional designers make models of cars, furniture or fashions.
What would a super-‐techy combination phone, sunglasses, bike helmet and mask look like? Design it!
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Silverware is sometimes kind of boring-‐looking. Come up with your own exciting ideas that would work as utensils.
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The mad inventor that lives next door to you has just shown you his new, amazing alarm clock that dumps a tray of ice cubes on you to wake you. Draw it.
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The “Checkered Pattern Toy Company” has hired you to paint their new line of dolls and action figures. What would a few models look like? Design them.
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School buses need to be seen on the roads. The Safety Committee of your school has asked you to design a school bus that would be highly noticeable. Draw your ideas.
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Velcro was inspired by a burr sticking to someone’s clothing. If your skin were somehow MAGNETIC, what kind of thing or things could you invent? Draw them and write descriptions of your amazing ideas.
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The “Not So Very Good Backpack Company” had asked you to design a terrible backpack for its new fall line. What features might you come up with for them? Draw/Explain.
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A famous Botanist has created a completely new flower in the lab that she wants to name after you. What does it look like?
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Design a stamp that commemorates YOU! What would it have on it?
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What would a dangerous hat look like? Draw it.
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Chapter 3: Communication Design This is design that can include words, although there are many ways to use visual images and symbols alone to communicate information. Graphic Design is included in this section, and students will be exposed to thinking about things like layout, scale, and composition. As in much of what we do as art teachers, vocabulary is a part of our lessons and students enrich their English language skills in the art room. So be sure to have a Word Wall somewhere in your art room, or, if you are on a cart, carry a large lined easel pads that can operate as word posters. It is important that students pronounce the words and connect to how they are spelled. When working with communication design, your students will come equipped with understanding of logos and symbols. When I taught elementary art, I had a Cyrillic alphabet-‐lettered can of soda and the students all knew what brand it was based on the design of the can. I would ask them how they knew and they said that is “just looked liked that particular soda.” Sometimes we want the images to stand alone and another elementary memory was a student who obviously felt she had to make sure the viewers understood her work—she labeled all the objects in her drawings—just in case. So we had the words “tree,” “sun,” “house” and the like in each drawing. Encourage your students to simplify their images—often overly-‐detailed images lose impact—especially from far away. Using an outline is sometimes helpful to increase visibility and, if color is used, limiting the palette can be effective. Remember to teach that warm colors tend to “come forward” and cool colors “recede.” Also that light colors surrounded by darker tones tend to come forward and dark colors surrounded by lighter tones tend to recede.
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Make a wordless sign that would mean “No toenail-‐cutting on the bus.”
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Typography is the design of letters. Using your first name, design new and unusual lettering that will express something about yourself or your interests.
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If you need to keep people from coming close to a crazy-‐looking pointy sculpture and can’t use a sign, how would you do it? Draw your idea.
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The World’s Happiest City would like you to design a city logo or symbol. What might you come up with? No words, of course, because that would be too easy.
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Can you design a bed that LOOKS comfy, but isn’t? What would it be made of? Draw it and explain your ideas.
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A man named Al Star is running for Mayor and would like you to design a bumper sticker for his upcoming political campaign. What would it look like? Make up a slogan as well, if you like.
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Design a Billboard for the side of a highway that advertises “Uncle Ted’s UFO Museum and Country Kettle Restaurant.”
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Design a fence that says “Danger! Keep away!” without using any words.
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Your school wants you to make a sign that will show students the new dress code: silly hats and clown shoes must be worn at all times. No words allowed!
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Design a chart to show aliens how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without using words.
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Chapter 4: Experiential Design
This type of design adds elements of the emotions and senses to the mix, along with spatial concerns. Touch, sound and smell are a part of thinking about how to create designs that can be experienced in ways other than just sight. Not that there aren’t visual aspects to designing in this mode. The point is to try to think of how your audience is going to feel and what the impact might be when they are exposed to your ideas. For example, if I design a walkway wall in a botanical garden that will inform non-‐sighted people through bas-‐relief images of the plants on display and Braille explanations, I have created an experience that goes beyond just the visual. Many of the problems below overlap a bit with one or more of the previous three areas of design (environmental, object and communication), but the emphasis here is to think about the physical response(s) the audience might have to a product, space, building, etc. This is an interdisciplinary perspective which can be transformative. Sound environments can make one feel comfortable or uneasy. Stores know this because they play background music to relax the customer and that makes them buy more. Many sound artists can manipulate sounds in their pieces to annoy, scare, amuse, instruct or bore the viewer/listener. (Check out the You Tube Soundings: A Contemporary Score, which was at MOMA in 2013, for samples of 16 such artists.) A few of these problems may be a little more abstract and difficult to do, but I’ve also included some basic ones, that will help learners begin to think about how a designer can use their wits to design experiences, not just things.
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What would a furry landscape look like?
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Create an abstract drawing that expresses the idea of “calm before a big, big storm.” Don’t use objects; just shapes, lines, colors and tones. Give the feel of calm, about to be disturbed.
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Design a machine that would tickle people as they went through it.
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How many different TEXTURES can you make? Draw them here. Make them look three-‐dimensional, if possible.
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Your client wants a feeling of being at the bottom of the sea in his bedroom. The walls, floors and ceilings can be any shape or material and the budget is enormous. What do you come up with? Explain with words, if necessary.
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Design a school desk and chair for a place without gravity.
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Geiko Gloves” are the latest thing. You put them on and their sticky pods allow you to crawl up walls and ceilings! Draw an advertisement showing the fun kids would have using them!
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Draw a room with a wall that creates an optical illusion, such as making it look like there’s busy highway right there or a cavern or desert or…? What feeling might visitors to this room have?
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You have been asked to design the interior of a restaurant that serves only soft, mushy food (pudding, soft ice creams, mashed potatoes, yogurt, oatmeal, applesauce). Make the walls, tables, booths, etc. have a SOFT feel to match the food.
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The worst babysitter in the world took several small children to a very-‐soggy “Mud, Mud, Sticky Mud Playground.” Describe the scene in pictures.
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You have accidentally discovered a way to keep snow from melting in the Spring and Summer. What might you do in a “Fantasy Backyard” that would use your new discovery? Price is no object, so you can have fountains, sculptures, swimming pools, etc.
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Chapter 5: “Doodlelines” How to Use this Section Let your imagination flow. The rules are simple: all lines must be incorporated into a believable scenario. Use the paper in any direction you like. The lines and your own creativity and sensibilities will guide you. There are no wrong solutions here! Think about scale (i.e., your solution could be super-‐magnified or very far away). Think about interiors or exteriors. Add textures and patterns. Shade. Think foreground, middle ground and background. Think floating. Think animal, vegetable, mineral. Think the past. Think the future. Think about the mundane and ordinary. Think fancy. Think night or think day. Think cold, or hot, or inbetween. Play in your head. Be silly. Be serious. Be surprising. Be amazing, even. And feel free to start over if you must. (There are two of every doodleline, so you can easily copy two-‐sided, in case your students want to start over or make another one.)
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