RSA – My Favorite Subject
Get young people excited about Design
The Problem and Aim: In this project, the problem is not just tell people what Design is all about, because, as I found while I was mapping my ideas and my research, Design is really a broad subject and hard to define. This project is about bringing something new to the school curriculum about Design and Technology. According to my research I realized that most of the schools have this really strict curriculum that does not allow big changes or improvements about how you approach design and all the essence behind design, such as problem solving, analysis, innovation, critical thinking, etc. Although the reformed curriculum was designed to give teachers more freedom to give their lessons in a more interesting and creative way, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Instead, they seem to keep up with this old fashion, inadequate and uninspiring way of giving their lessons using woodwork and metalwork as a way to approach this subject, preventing Design and Technology to become a key element to build up and inspire young kids about design and all the great things design can bring to the society and to themselves.
Therefore my aim on this project was to inspire this young people to become creative thinkers and people who can reflect critically about what they learn so at the end they can make a positive contribution to society, in a dynamic and playful way. We are talking about kids from 12 to 18 years old, and they learn more if they are enjoying and having fun in what they are doing.
Research Methods: I've organized my research methods by the following titles to help me along all the research process, which they did.
a. Questions: This part of the research does really help you to start projects. It makes you aware of what you should do in the next steps. It helps you to know where to start, because you know you have to answer those questions. To do so, you have to research, to go out and look for the answers and that makes your starting point. I never had used this method before and it really helped me, although, for the following projects, I know I will have to work more on this part and take more from it. In this project I had to questioned myself about Design, about what it means to me and how could I excite young people about all the great things Design can do.
b. Actions: I visited two Secondary Schools - Claremont High School and St. Martins in Fields High School - and I tried to get an appointment with the Design and Technology department. None of them replied, so I had to think about other solutions to get information to help me on my project. I also went to the Design Museum and I checked on their workshops with Secondary Schools. For my next project I will try to be more persistent and try to get more from people to help me to get a better background on my projects.
c. Primary Research: Design is a really broad subject, so to my primary research I decided to map some design disciplines and choose one to focus, and developing my project in that particularly discipline. I choose Graphic Design!
While I was researching on the Internet for workshops and projects made in Secondary Schools I started to draw some ideas for what I could do to explain what is graphic design and for me, as a graphic designer, I still find difficult to define exactly what it is all about.
Therefore, I thought I could start to engage students by asking them to define graphic design. I went to the gates of a Secondary School (as I was not allowed inside) and I asked some students to define Graphic Design and I wrote that down.
I also went to the Design Museum to find out what kind of workshops they organize for students in Secondary Schools.
They have lots of workshops and enterprises projects running all the time but the workshops take place in the Museum and most of the enterprises are given to Secondary Schools' teachers, which means that Design Museum never goes to a Secondary School to set up a workshop or a project. So, I thought it could be a good idea to change that. Having the Design Museum as a partnership we could do something inside the Secondary Schools for the students to fully engage the project and feel part of it, and consequently, be more aware about Design!
For this project there were a lack of reportage, record, film and interviews. I should have interviewed more people and recorded it. I will definitely use more of this technology and make a bigger, deep and better research for my next projects.
d. Secondary Research:
-Research about Secondary Schools, T&D Curriculum and Workshops on the Internet:
-Research about Design in books:
What is Graphic Design for?, Alice Twemlow, Essential Design Handbooks, RotoVision SA 2006
6 Chapters in Design, Saul Bass, Ivan Chermayeff, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Ikko Tanaka, Henryk Tomaszewski, foreword by Philip B. Meggs, chronicle books 1997
Starting Graphics and Design, Keith Balkham and Richard Mills, Heinemann Educational Books
-Research how to make a flexagon and what to do with it (videos):
Project/Method: At first my idea was to create a school magazine made and set up by students, where they could explore a big area of Graphic Design. But I gave up of that idea, because it would be restrict to a certain amount of students and not all of them would take part, engage and learn from it. Therefore, my plan changed and I came up with this idea of a DesignWeek in the school with lectures and workshops. I wanted to present a fun, relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere around the lectures and fulfill that with workshops where students are going to experiment and create Graphic Design.
After I reach this idea that I found sustainable and with potential, I started to work on its concept and its brand language. I worked on the image, logotype and created a whole system for the brand: DesignWeek. I choose 5 disciplines of Design so it will be 5 weeks of 5 Design disciplines, which are the following:
- Graphic DesignWeek;
- Fashion DesignWeek;
- Architecture DesignWeek;
- Product DesignWeek;
- Packaging DeisgnWeek.
As I was building the system to the DesignWeek I was planning an agenda with the schedule for the workshops and lectures and also planning what workshops will be running during the Graphic DesignWeek.
For me, it was complicated to get all the ideas together and make it work as a total, but writing all down and making some sketches helped me to not loose my track. Another hard thing for me in this project was to create a 3D model of the DesignWeek place, as I never really used 3D programs. The last challenge was testing my design concept. I tried to test it with my cousins, explaining them my project and doing some workshops. I arranged some geometrical shapes and gave them paper and paint so they could create posters and paints about their idea of Graphic Design, but I wasn’t well prepared, I didn’t have the right materials, I didn’t have much time, and so, my testing didn’t go really well. So I take that on board from my first project to improve on my following projects.
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