Designers into Schools Week 2004
This year, Lift were happy to support the Designers into Schools Week 2004, organised by the Design Council.
Our involvement
Lift partner Matt Carey ran a day design workshop in Reading School, Berkshire.
During the day he:
- talked about what a designer does and how you train to become a designer
- showed design work by Lift to the pupils, and discussed the steps involved from start to finish within a project
- ran a series of short design projects
Design projects
Matt first asked the class to separate into groups and evaluate an everyday object designed in different ways, in this case a teapot. The pupils tested each teapot against a variety of criteria – capacity, appearance, safety, how well it functioned etc. Each group then reported back to the class with their findings and view point.
The class were then set the first of two short design projects – the aim was to get them to show their thinking rather than spend time on the quality of presentation.
The first design project was to explain to an alien how to boil an egg. No words or numbers were allowed, only imagery and icons. This type of project shows the principles behind information design, with any solution needing to be clear and easy to use and understand.
The second design project was to design a new version of the Reading School badge. Before starting Matt talked about logo design and some of the issues to consider.
Download explain to an alien how to boil an egg project brief (in PDF format, 26kb)