Interviews with Graphic Designers

If you teach graphic design, you may want to share interviews with graphic designers with your classes. Lynda.com has some wonderful ones under their Creative Inspiration section, but it that site requires a monthly fee (well worth it).

Another one, which is also a great example of using object animation, is from the School of Visual Arts, of interviews with designers who were students of Richard Wilde. (Love the target assignment!)

Good Flash Examples

If you are teaching Flash animation, you probably have bookmarked some excellent Flash interactive sites for examples. Would you please take the time to share them with us? Just add your favorites in the comments section with a short explanation (appropriate for public school viewing, please).

I'm looking for innovative, captivating educational sites for my classroom examples.

Shortoftheweek.com  has a Flash category. The Bendito Machines are ones I found there. I always show BM1 at least, and have fun letting the students interpret the meaning. There are 4.

Here is a great one on the MOMA site about their Tim Burton exhibition.

Another one from MOMA, but very different is their What is a Print? interactive

Here is a Flash portfolio site  by a very talented student, whose website is titled "okaydave.com"

Another museum interactive for younger children, from the Art Institute of Chicago, has some beautifully done storytelling, for example.

From the Smithsonian, a site about book illustrations

An interactive site about color theory.  I use this in my graphic design classes as an alternative to a lecture style lesson about color.

A nice example of Flash poetry, Why do you stay up so late?

Please share what you've found. If you have some successful student Flash sites as well, let us know.

More Painting with Light

You may want your students to take part in The Carrot Revolution's collaborative project of images created with open shutters and some flashlights. The deadline for entries is March 1st and you should register your class ahead of time. Visit their website for more info. You may also want to follow the Carrot Revolution blog, as well as read this NPR article about the project with student examples.  I plan on taking part and will post my students' examples soon. For some more info on light painting, check out this earlier DAE blog post

Color Decisions

Creating color combinations is a sensibility that most students haven't had a chance to develop. Cutting and combining Color-Aid paper is not the most efficient way to acquire color experience. (Ok, if you don't know about Color-Aid paper then you really are young.) Teaching color theory and relationships is much easier in Illustrator and doesn't have to be a mind-melting experience thanks to the Window>Extensions menu in Illustrator CS4. Your students can choose Kulor and download swatches of color schemes into their swatch collection without actually going to the Kulor website. You can tell your students which swatch collections to work with for each color exercise, for example, or just require them to choose a swatch collection and stick with it. The above color scheme is called "Haiti Relief". If you need to brush up on color theory, visit the kulor.adobe.com links page.  There is even a link to Colorstrology where you can find the Pantone color that vibrates with your inner you... or something like that.

I'm Hooked!: More from mrduey.com

Rapping Math Teacher

Whatever works! Read about this creative guy in edutopia.

Launch an Arts-Based, Inter-Disciplinary School Magazine

Leslie O'Shaughnessy of Robert E. Lee High School in Virginia, creates an interdisciplinary magazine that involves several departments in the school and excites the student body, staff and administration enough that she continues this every year. Check out the full student-produced E-Zine online.

Here is an overview of the project in her own words:

WHAT does an Arts-Based, Inter-Disciplinary School Magazine include?
• An overarching “theme” or “big idea”
• A format to showcase student art work from Fine Art, Photo, and Computer Graphics areas
• A range of student “Features” from various core subject areas (written commentary, photographs, skits or debates via video, music links, wiki research, etc.)
• An online magazine with hyperlinks produced with InDesign, and a hard-copy accordian-book display.

WHY launch an Arts-Based, Inter-Disciplinary School Magazine?
• To enrich overall student learning through collaborative effort with core subjects
• To provide “real world” magazine design experience to Computer Graphics students
• To fold “literacy” into the Art POS
• To enable participating students to receive credit for “published” work (looks good on college app’s)
• To facilitate the use of technology via an e-zine format

WHERE TO BEGIN to Launch an Arts-Based, Inter-Disciplinary School Magazine?

1. Choose an overarching magazine theme or human issue. (i.e. honoring nature/global warming, peace/conflict, human diversity, heroes, life cycles, etc.) Consider how other subjects can tap into it.

2. Recruit collaborative effort from teachers of other subjects/departments and research standards to tie into the theme.

• Cite the current educational trend emphasizing collaboration/inter-curricular connections (Our principal LOVED this project!)
• Cite the value of showcasing a core department’s work
• Cite professional development (Evaluations)
• Cite strand (No new lesson planning needed)
• Make specific suggestions for tapping-in (Poems, political cartoons, essay excerpt, wiki research, lab results, skits, videos, etc.)

3. For the production of this year's E-Zine with the theme of the environment, aptly titled, Ecozine:

Art students contributed…

• Art 1 students– printmaking cover art, short Environmental Artist article w/photos
• Photo students – Local Community Service article w/photos
• CG 1 students– full e-zine magazine layout, short environmental commentary, original ads
• Advanced CG students–environmental posters

Core students contributed…

• Pre-IB Gov’t students– Cap and Trade Debate video
• ESOL students– recycling pyramids
• IB Biology students – Wiki research on alternative energy
• Science students– Rising Sea Level models
• French 3 students– video skit about littering
• Spanish 3 students– children’s eco books on video

I recommend 16-pages, including covers, using InDesign

4. Promotion and Exhibit of Final Magazine/Displayed Artwork

• Print-out hard copies and “accordion mount” and display in school Library.
• Post pdf file of full magazine on school website. Exhibit mounted cover artwork in school gallery and art shows.

There is more info on the school's website. For additional info on collaboration or magazine production, contact Leslie: LBOShaughnes@fcps.edu

Typography Portraits

Check out 45 Amazing Type Faces...not fonts...human faces. Above are examples created in Illustrator by computer graphics I students.

10 Places to Find Photoshop Courses, Tutorials, and Lessons Online

from guest blogger, Karen Schweitzer

Artists who are interested in learning how to work within the Adobe Photoshop program or increase their current skills can obtain a free education online. There are many different sites that provide Photoshop courses, lessons, and tutorials to self-learners. Here are 10 no-cost education resources to explore in your free time:

Photoshop Basics Course - This free About.com course guides students through the basics of Adobe Photoshop. The self-paced course can be taken online or delivered in installments via email.

CreativeTechs 6-Month Photoshop Course - Artists who are interested in learning something new or refining their Photoshop skills can join this free worldwide course that is already in progress. New classes are held each week and take approximately two hours to complete.

PhotoshopCAFE Tutorials - PhotoshopCAFE provides free tutorials that teach artists how to add texture, complete photo projects, work with text, create designs for the web, and much more.

PhotoshopStar - PhotshopStar offers a nice selection of free Photoshop tutorials for intermediate to advanced users. The site also pays artists who submit their own tutorials.

PhotoshopRoadmap - Most of the free tutorials on PhotoshopRoadmap are geared toward pros who are trying to learn advanced techniques, but the site also hosts a few essential tutorials for beginners.

Photoshop Support Tutorials - This popular site offers a wide range of tutorials for various versions of Photoshop, including Adobe CS, Adobe CS2, Adobe CS3, and Adobe CS4.

Psdtuts+ - Part blog/part Photoshop site, Psdtuts+ is a good place to find free tutorials, articles, and videos. The site also hosts a helpful wiki with more than 100 articles.

Pixel2life Tutorials - Pixel2life, which hosts one of the largest collections of free tutorials on the web, caters to graphic designers and webmasters who are seeking a free education. Site users can learn from current tutorials and submit their own to earn free advertising and prizes.

Free Photoshop Book - This free, no-strings-attached Photoshop book includes 25 essential lessons for beginning and professional Photoshop users. The lessons include handy techniques, time-saving tools, practical applications, shortcuts, and other useful information.

Basic Photoshop Lessons - Utah State University offers three free online lessons for students who are trying to learn the basics of Photoshop. Each lesson includes a useful handout, practice exercise, or assignment.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Trippy Notan

Creating Notan designs in Illustrator is less frustrating than using x-acto knives and paper. Next step: applying color theory to Notan designs. The above are Computer Graphics I student examples. This lesson plan and those for other Illustrator projects are available on Teachers Pay Teachers.

High School Photography Competition

It's time to think about Drexel University Antionette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design's High School Photography Contest. . All photographic processes eligible.

Painting with Light

Here is a great lesson idea from Photoshoplab: how to add dramatic lighting to otherwise dull photograph. It is based on one of my favorite books, Welcome to Oz: A Cinematic Approach to Photoshop, by Vincent Versace. This page has screenshots that your students can follow to get the effect.

We all Scream for Screenr

All those demos we do...now we can record them to share with others, or to post for our students as a reminder....without buying software. Screenr is free and brings us up a few notches in impressive digital teaching methods.

"Screenr is a web-based tool that lets you create screencasts without installing any software. You just click the record button and your screen activity is recorded along with narration from your microphone. Screenr then publishes your screencast in high-definition Flash format. Screenr makes it easy to share your screencast on Twitter, YouTube or anywhere else on the web. Even iPhone users can view your screencast."

This also shines a whole new light on distance learning. I have many artists asking me how to adjust photos of their artwork in Photoshop (also necessary for AP students) and we try to schedule workshops for them to attend, but some travel a couple hours to get to the workshops. This will be my first Screenr (other than the little test I did).

If you create a Screenr for a lesson demo, please let me know and I will post it here for you to share with the rest of us.

Portrait in Contrasting Colors

This is similar to what Andy Warhol created with his multiples silkscreens, so you can use him as an exemplar if you want, and add steps of painted lines as well. I guess you could also use Shepard Fairey for a more contemporary exemplar and instead of multiples, add some words. This would be a good time to explain the process of silk screening so they understand how the originals were made.

1. Students take photos of friends, of if you use images off of google, choose "large" under options. It should be at least 200K.
2. Open image in Photoshop. Image>Adjustments>Threshhold. (Move the slider to get the right amount of detail. You might need to choose a different image if you can't get good detail.)
3. Select>Color Range. Use the eyedropper on the image to select black (not on the thumbnail showing). You should see the "marching ants" around the black areas.
4. Choose a foreground color. Edit>Fill>Foreground color
5. Select>Inverse
6. Choose second color (complementary or near complementary). Edit>Fill>Foreground color
7. Tweak your colors using the Select tools learned. Select>Deselect. File>Save As
8. To make multiple variants, just use Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and save each as new name.
9. Arrange them on new document that is a size you can print. But first check the resolution of the original image (Image>Image size) and make your new document the same resolution. Open, Select>All, Copy and Paste Use Edit>Transform>Scale to resize each layer. Crop. Students can continue to adjust colors even at this stage.

I have additional Photoshop lessons for high school students on my Teachers Pay Teachers site.

Let the Party Begin!

It's that time of year again. We are either looking forward to the new school year, or are filled with anxiety... OK, sometimes a little of both. I want to give some advice to all of those who will be new to digital media this year and to their more experienced colleagues:

1. Don't feel insecure about how much you don't know yet. It is OK to be just a week, or sometimes just a day ahead of your students while you learn. You have a lot to learn. As a matter of fact, I think it's a great idea to let your students know. High school students in particular love to think of themselves as adults, and nothing is better for their ego than to know more than a teacher. If you let the students know you are also learning this along with them, some who are a little farther along than you make great resources when you need help, and are great teacher helpers when too many hands are raised asking for help. Also, all the students in the class will be more forgiving of your mistakes and backtracks if they know you are learning just like them. I usually have at least one student who is more of an expert in something than I am in every class, thank goodness.

2. Be flexible, if something isn't working, don't feel like you will look like a dufus if you say something like, "You know what, I don't think this is the best way to do this anymore. What do you think? I want to scrap this and start with this new assignment. My apologies. I appreciate you giving it the 'ole college try'. Let's start fresh with something better."

3. You are still the expert when it comes to art history, art elements and design and composition, expressing big ideas, looking critically at art and the joy of art. The fundamentals of art are the same whether you are using a spray can, a paintbrush or a mouse.

4. You are still an experienced teacher and an advocate for your students. If an administrator puts more students in the class than there are computers, explain that it is not fair for the students who have to share a computer to fall so far behind, or to have to stay after to catch up, or for you to be forced to teach them after school. Sometimes administrators forget that you aren't just using computer to peruse the internet.

5. Sign up at Lynda.com where you can watch wonderful video tutorials on any software you need to learn, plus some about careers and creativity. It is only $25/ month and you don't have to commit to more than a month. Plus, now you can print out a certificate for every course you finish and use these for recertification points. This style of learning is much more flexible than a class that you have to attend at a specific time. You can find courses at your community college.

6. Remember you are teaching Art and creative problem solving. Always design your lessons around the Art, not the software, but do keep in mind that learning software is cumulative and there is a definite set of skills to learn first before the others. Some software is easier to learn than the others. (I start with Photoshop, but others like to start with the vector software like InDesign or Illustrator.)

7. Digital media is preparing young people for the real world and you should be proud. In addition, you are probably attracting students into the art program who are as intimidated about traditional media as you are about digital media and for the first time, they feel brave enough to take an art class. If your school system requires a traditional media class BEFORE a digital media class, you might want to talk to your supervisor about the potential swell in art students if you allow students to use their digital media class as their foundation class.

8. Ask more experienced colleagues for help and offer to pay for long term tutoring. (Note to more experienced colleague: remember what you felt like when you made the leap.)

9. Psych yourself every day. Use a mantra: "I love art, I love kids, I love learning new things. This is exciting and I AM excited to be here. Life is good." In other words, if you are tense, the anxiety is contagious and the kids will not enjoy the class.