Lesson Plan Three: Becoming a Graphic Designer - Creating a Tri-fold Brochure
After students have completed their research, they will begin to create informational brochures to share the information they have learned. They will go through the process of a graphic designer in order to do this. The first step in working on a design project is to meet with the client to determine the client's needs. I will have students brainstorm a list of questions that they would prepare before meeting with the client, to generate a specification sheet about the project.
The client in this case will be High School in the Community. We are "hiring" them to create tri-fold brochure to convince the local school board to participate in programs to bring better food into the school. HSC would like the brochure to have three parts: (1) a provocative print ad on the front speaking to the nature of the food available presently in the cafeteria, (2) charts and graphs comparing food now versus healthy food options - students should choose one or two options to highlight, (3) two recipe cards on the back of the brochure which are made from healthy, reasonably priced local produce as a working example. The brochure needs to be dynamic, convincing, and provide solutions. I will give the students a worksheet of the client (HSC's) expectations.
After meeting with the client the designer needs to determine the demographic of the target audience, which for this project has been given to the students by the client. They are interested in targeting board of education members - adults who make decisions for an entire school system. Next the designer needs to research they types of brochures that are effective in reaching the target audience. We will look at a series of different ads involving food choices and will discuss which ones are effective and why. There are a series of ads called "Obesity is Suicide" which show foods turned into methods of killing oneself. For instance a noose made out of sausages, or a woman who looks like she's over-dosed on pills which are really M&Ms. These ads are very striking and may be inappropriate for our audience, but I am hopeful that they will get students thinking about similar types of ads showing cafeteria food in a bad light versus its fresh alternative.
Once the target audience is determined and researched, students will begin the brainstorming process. I would like them to brainstorm a list of at least fifty words that come to mind when they think about healthy and unhealthy meals. I would then like them to choose the top fifteen words from their list, and make a list of ten words for each of those fifteen. This process of brainstorming usually gets your brain to begin thinking outside of the box. For instance, we will have discussed processed versus fresh food, cooking methods and protein choices. An effective front cover ad might show an entire factory and line of workers showing chicken parts and fat being input with a chicken patty popping out the end, versus an image of a nice fresh chicken breast under the headline: YOU DECIDE. By the time they are completing this assignment students will have the Photoshop skills to easily create such an ad with the appropriate photographs.
Once students have finished brainstorming their lists they will create thumbnail sketches for three different covers. A thumbnail sketch is a small rough draft, which includes a rough sketch of the images and blocks in any text that will be used in approximately the correct size. Students will choose their favorite thumbnail and create roughs on the computer from their thumbnails. We will need to discuss how the brochure will be folded, along with the flow of information.
Once students have completed the roughs they will complete a peer critique where each student will look at the roughs of two other students. I think that doing peer critiques in an art class is extremely important for two reasons. The first reason is that it is important to get feedback from more than one person - as the teacher I am constantly in communication with the students about their ideas, however I am only one brain and cannot always come up with the best ideas. Also, I find that students are each other's best critics, and offer extremely helpful suggestions. Before we begin the critique I always have a discussion with the students to clarify the purpose of the critique. First they should be stating specifically what they like about the artwork. Then they should be offering helpful, specific suggestions to improve the artwork. It is important that the suggestions be specific because students often want to say, "I like it" without elaborating or really giving constructive information. It is also important that they not be negative, but instead to offer specific advice to improve a work.
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