Teaching

1. The Importance of Communication All designers must communicate effectively. Learning to do so visually and verbally is a challenge. Most students can communicate well verbally but struggle when communicating visually. Graphic design is more complex than just constructing a logo or preparing photos for publication. Being able to communicate visually and verbally can be tricky. The students discuss how to employ this skill through the class topics and projects. ​2. The Importance of Being Well-Rounded Designers need to be well-rounded, and students often take time to discover their interests and talents. Encouraging the students to explore other disciplines such as creative writing, copywriting, economics, marketing, figure drawing, art history, and graphic design helps them augment their skills. ​For example, one student was an excellent illustrator. While in high school, he created a comic series featuring a teenage zombie girl. His comic was good, and his drawings were fantastic. Now, there is a need in the medical field for medical illustrators. As his depictions of the zombie's entrails were detailed, this opportunity was intriguing. He took additional classes in anatomy and physiology to better understand the human body's inner workings. ​3. Uncovering Those Undiscovered Strengths When designing, the first idea, the first sketch, and the first concept are rarely the strongest. Knowing this, each class project is broken into stages. Students start by making rough sketches or thumbnails on paper. Much like brainstorming, this method gets many (good and bad) ideas into the initial conversation. The student then picks their strongest ideas and develops them further. During this tighter comps stage, the student is encouraged to look at each design more critically. They are challenged to look at each stage from many different perspectives and to anticipate many different outcomes. Rough and tight comps can be one stage or several. It depends entirely on the student and their desired outcome. Once three to five well-thought-out tight comps are developed, the student begins finalizing their project. ​ For instance, during a logo design project, students were challenged to design a logo to feature negative space, to try a unique style, or to include or not include a particular element. The final projects were more creative than the rough sketches. ​4. Initiation of the Intricacies of the Adobe Creative Suite During the Intro Classes, I am responsible for introducing students to the different programs and showcasing how they work together as a complete suite. Many students have never used the Creative Suite, and many have. Finding the balance in teaching both types of students is challenging, but holistically presenting the material improves all students' understanding and proficiency of the suite. ​ Beyond the fundamentals, students must be well versed in many aspects of the industry. Not only do they need to facilitate graphic design's many needs, but they also need to understand the importance of communication and business management. Students also learn to be good leaders of projects and people because being able to design in Creative Suite is only a part of the industry. ​Understanding these principles is essential to emphasize how companies operate in the real world and prepare the students to face their future. ​5. Expanding Their Creativity Nearly every student enters the graphic design program with a level of creativity and the desire to learn the skills to turn their passion into a career. These students range from a stay-at-home mom looking to start a photography business to a retiree who wants to create his first comic book to a recent high school graduate who already creates websites on the weekend. However, many of these students will say they cannot draw, are not photographers, or are not good copywriters. Since much of the industry relies on these skills, allowing students to stretch their creativity is essential. For example, at the beginning of each semester, the students were provided a list of drawing prompts. Each week they are challenged to draw five full-color pictures based on these prompts. The prompts range from a week of body parts (ears, teeth, feet, hands, and eyes) to a week of abstract things (love, light, heaven, memory, and silence). The output of the students on this project was outstanding. Some students were talented at drawing animals, flourished when drawing people, and shined when coloring their artwork. Several students started to think bigger and took each theme and incorporated it into a semester-long, stylistic statement. This challenge made the students' project sketches more developed and thought out. It was a fantastic exercise that encouraged students who would not usually draw extensively to hone their craft.