Print Ad/ Book Cover Design Assignment

After designing their logos and business cards, the children were ready to do their Print Ad. There is a LOT of design and execution that goes into making an ad, so I was just looking for them to demonstrate that they understood some of the concepts and design principles we talked about. They could either advertise a product, or redesign a book cover. Daisy was the only one that chose to do the book cover.

She worked really hard on it, choosing to use an old photo of herself for the goose girl, and clip art geese with clip art crowns. She learned how to paste and rotate and scale objects in photoshop, and to erase backgrounds. She chose the color of the cover, and the black shadow around the geese and the girl, to show that "this isn't just a kids' book, but it's a little bit scary and adults might like it too!" I love how it turned out! I might even like it better than the original. Note that this book is published by her company, "The Winding D."

I'm sorry to report that Sebastian and Malachi put off making their ads until they were nearly due, and as a result made them a little less polished than they could have. Both of them could have stood to do a few more concepts and rewrites. (Both of them could also do with a little less of the smart-alecky ad copy...but such is life with preteens! Ha ha.) Here is Seb's "Shmelf."

Some of Malachi's thumbnail sketches

And here are the last two version's of Malachi's "ad-making machine" advertisement. He thought his deliberate use of the Papyrus font was pretty darn funny in the left version. But after Sam's feedback, he ended up using the version on the right. "Lape" is his company name (I can't remember what it stands for...if anything).

Abe, my future businessman, LOVES doing this sort of thing and does it even in his free time. He came up with a music and movie subscription service catering to the "elite customer." He tried to suggest elegance and money-is-no-object in every line. He tried version after version, changing fonts and line spacing, experimenting with colors and layout. He worked really hard making it exactly as he wanted it! And the final product, printed out on glossy paper, really did look beautiful. Here it is:

Personal Logo Design Assignment

I thought the most useful part of this Logo Design assignment was when Sam showed us how to brainstorm. Since each child was looking for a personal logo that represented himself, Sam had them write lists of all the words they thought represented them in various ways. They wrote things they liked, talents, words that described them, etc. 

Next, he had them draw symbols that might represent the words on those lists. Things like light bulbs for intelligence or curiosity, an eye to represent learning or looking for something, a smile or a flower or a starburst to represent happiness, and so on. Some words could have many associated symbols. Some words were more abstract (like "mystery" or "cute") so we talked about various ways to visually represent those concepts in a way everyone could understand.

Then, he had them draw connecting lines between concepts that were related or could go together in some way. They took the symbols that went with those words and tried to see how much "density" they could pack into those symbols. For example, a moon might represent mystery, light, astronomy, and women, and it might also look like a letter "C" or (turned the other way) like a smile. Sam had the children explore all these options visually, and he wanted them to do LOTS of these explorations! "Your ideas will get better and better as you keep exploring the possibilities," he said. He made them keep at it long after THEY thought they were done. :)

Here you can see Daisy's paper exploring some of the concepts she liked best. Penguins, curiosity, imagination, daisies and nature, happiness, reading, and mystery were some of the words she chose to describe her personal concept.

In the top left (circled) is the final logo concept she selected. It has a moon and a ladder going up into a cloud, representing imagination and dreams and fantasy. The ladder is whimsically curved (not strict and straight) and it's entwined with vines, showing her love of the natural world. And the whole thing forms a "D" shape, for "Daisy."

After she chose the basic idea, I helped her create a form of it in Photoshop. You can see the changes as we went through different iterations:

She liked the colors in this one, but they were distracting from the overall shape of the image.

Grouping the colors into an analogous color scheme made them less distracting, and changing the cloud shape made it stronger and less amorphous. Enlarging the crescent moon in proportion to the ladder gave more emphasis to the overall "D" shape.

Sam also taught the children that a good logo has to be readable and effective even without color printing. You can see that this logo works nicely in either color or B&W.

I really loved how Daisy's logo turned out! She worked hard on it. And the other children had great logos too! (Though some spent more time on them than others did. :))

Here is Malachi's personal logo.

Abe's, in black and white and color.

And Sebastian's. I love it. (It has an "M" for his company name, Monko.)

Here is Abe's logo on his business card, made for his company, Phase Inc. Abe has a very specific and minimalist design sensibility. He always has. I like it.

He also made company stationery/letterhead.

Ky's business card. ("Presidant." Haha.)

And Daisy's card for her company, "The Winding D." So great, right? She did almost all of this design by herself, though I actually executed it in Photoshop. She sat next to me and told me what to do and where to move things.

I'm not sure where Seb's business card ended up, but it was equally great. :)

Advertising and Marketing Unit Study and Lesson PLan

This unit was really fun. It included some media literacy and graphic design, and we also talked about symbolism in words and images.

The children had three main assignments as part of this unit: 

• Design a personal logo
• Design a business card or stationery using your logo
• Design and print out a print advertisement OR Redesign a favorite book cover

The design process was harder than the children anticipated (Sam kept sending them back to iterate again and again, and when they protested he just told them how many times HE has to iterate on professional designs before he's done!) but they really learned a LOT from doing these assignments. Even the simple task of figuring out how to adjust colors and settings to get a really nice glossy print was good for them. I'll show the finished assignments in another post (here and here).

Sam helped out a lot with the graphic design stuff, but we also learned a lot from the books The Non-Designer's Design Book and Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design. Those were my two favorite books from the unit.

We went on a field trip to Temple Square in Salt Lake City, and looked at the different symbols on the exterior of the Salt Lake Temple. (We talked about what the symbols meant the day before the field trip.) I used the symbols in this article, and printed out a little worksheet so the children could cross the symbols out as they found them. Everyone had fun with this, even the youngest children (with some help from me)! Here's the checklist we used:

A few more related links:

This vintage ad browser is kind of fun

The children loved this! You can make a font out of your handwriting. You have to make an account first, but then your first font is free. Here are some samples of our fonts:

(Here is the original "Marilynhand," if you're curious.)

We thought this was fun too, even though it's quite dated. A children's show talking about some of the "tricks" advertisers use to get you to buy their products.

A lesson plan for older children about persuasive techniques in advertising

We really liked these articles about color theory, brand identity and color in marketing: Part I and Part II

This show about gendered marketing was interesting. You might want to preview it first (if I remember right, there were a few slightly crude comments, but they went over the children's heads).

Some of these funny print ads were good

Monte Python's String Sketch is a classic example of how to sell something that seems useless :)