This document provides an agenda for a design class. It includes an icebreaker activity where students determine their design aesthetic. It then discusses redesigning a poorly designed party flyer to improve elements like text, images, color and essential information. Students are instructed to work in pairs using InDesign and Photoshop to create a better version of the flyer. Homework assigned is to read chapters 4 and 5 and start work on a logo design.

1. February 5, 2014

2. TODAY
1) Icebreaker
2) Missy: She’s Missing
3) Design task 2 and the world’s quickest Photoshop
tutorial
4) Let’s throw some C.R.A.P. at the wall
5) Show it off!
6) For next week…

3. To start off…
For your icebreaker, I want all of you to hop on a computer and
go to this website (it’s linked under today’s PPT on the site if you
don’t want to type the whole URL):
http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/which-design-aesthetic-are-you
When you finish, tell us your name (as usual) and what you got.

5. Annnnd now…

6. Design
You’ve done some reading on design, and
we’ll talk much more about design principles
next week. But to get us started, I want to
look at one poorly designed flyer and talk
about how we might make it better.
Prepare thyself!

7. From
http://www.
bignnastyp
rod.com/sit
e/djdirty/dj
dirty.htm

8. Design choices
I’m not sure I precisely understand it, but there’s sort of
a sub-genre of party flyers that look a bit like this one.
Knowing that, I don’t want to act as if this is absolutely
hideous, but I think you can safely say, based on our
readings so far, that this is not a well designed flyer.
When addressing a flyer like this, we want to collect
some key information. So let’s break down what we
actually have here.

9. Elements
Text:
Images:
Color:
What is “essential?”:

10. As pairs, hop on a machine
And make a better version of this flyer using InDesign and
Photoshop (use Photoshop only to create elements to
feed to your InDesign document) .
You can do it! I’ll give you all the time we have left to
work. When we get to the 5 minute warning, I’ll ask you
to save and send to me. If you get done sooner, we can
show off what you made. But think about doing it well;
don’t worry about doing it fast.

11. Homework
For Monday, remember you will have a reading
response and Design Task 2 due on Monday
night.
Read: Golombisky & Hagen chapter 4 and 5.
Try to get a start on your logo so you don’t fall
behind schedule!