Dressing Table Design Case Study: Delivery

Case Study CP1104: Retail Design

The first part of the unit was planned around "bringing everyone up to speed" because there was a wide range of student experience and expertise. To ensure that everyone picked up all the knowledge and skills they needed, it was assumed that students didn't have any prior knowledge of design, layout and Photoshop skills. Sketching and rendering skills were taught in the Perfume Bottle unit, during the first part of the year. This helped those who hadn't done DVC before and reinforced skills for others. Student achievement was also self-differentiating, Jez notes, in that the higher-ability students pushed themselves to a higher standard.

Introduction to document design, layout and Photoshop skills

The first activity involved students in learning about design and layout through creating a small piece of media design. Successful completion of this task, Jez says, would enable students to evaluate and develop their designs further. They were asked to design a business card for a pet shop, using a set number of images given to them. Teachers provided only a small number of images (not all of them "nice" ones) and fonts and everyone had to use the same background colour. Reducing the variable elements forced the students to create interesting designs out of quite bland design components, Jez explains.

Pet shop business images and fonts. (Click images to enlarge)

The students mocked-up their designs, using the images, fonts and paper supplied, as four A6-sized business card designs (the larger size chosen to make it easier for them and because it required less accuracy).

Teachers showed their classes a PowerPoint presentation which described the principle elements of layout design. Students then mounted their designs onto A3 paper and evaluated them in terms of layout, contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. The object of this exercise, Jez says, was to help students appreciate that objects are not just placed arbitrarily on a page but need some relationship with each other.

In the following three lessons, teachers introduced some of the basic principles involved in using Photoshop – setting up the size of the work area, using layers and selecting/clipping objects. Using the same components as before, students redesigned three business cards but this time manipulated them with Photoshop to incorporate the knowledge they had learnt about layout design. Jez explains that the purpose of this exercise was two-fold – to give students an understanding of the principles of layout design, and to introduce them to elements of Photoshop they would need for their next assignment.

Research and present the work of an influential designer

Setting students to research the work of an influential designer can potentially involve some of them in spending vast amounts of time looking through books, magazines and the internet for inspiration. To make the task more manageable and help students focus on one designer at the earliest opportunity, Jez and Hi sung restricted the research element. They chose five architects and five furniture designers, from a diverse range rather than "obvious" choices, and showcased their work on a PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint was used as a discussion starter but not given to the students, to encourage them to conduct their own research and find their own images.

The students discussed the predominant features of the designers' work and what they thought had influenced each person. They also considered what they particularly liked or disliked about the designs. This was intended to give students an insight into the different styles and allow them to make an informed decision as to which designer to choose. The school librarian researched designers and compiled a list of websites and online encyclopaedia entries and provided a collection of books for the classrooms.

Both teachers were surprised at how interested the students were in learning about the designers. Jez observes that they hadn't been aware of the impact designers have on the world around them. "Choosing a designer gave them a little appreciation of what these people do. They see things all day, every day, and don't really acknowledge that someone designed it. For something they hadn't been exposed to before it was 'Wow! I actually like this' – that was a really interesting thing to watch, to see this electronic generation being impressed by old Victorian and modern designs".

Teachers provided template planning sheets to help with gathering and writing information. Students cut-and-pasted images and information about their chosen designer on the first planning sheet and used this as the basis for the next lesson. They then used the second template to design the layout for a poster advocating the work of their chosen designer. They were expected to roughly show the relationship between the areas of text and the images they planned to include later in their poster design.

Planning sheet 1 (PDF, 81kb)
Planning sheet 2 (PDF, 37kb)

Students spent the next three lessons working in Photoshop to produce a poster, with some needing extra help with more complex designs. After completing their design, students printed their draft and discussed it with the teacher. The third lesson was allocated to making improvements, from layout to correcting spelling mistakes, and producing a final design. Students submitted their work on an influential designer to be assessed against Achievement Standards (AS) 1.34 (Use the work of an influential designer to inform design ideas) and 1.36 (Promote an organised body of design work to an audience using visual communication techniques).

Design for a dressing table informed by the work of an influential designer

Students extended the work on their chosen designer in the third part of the unit. They were given a very open brief which asked them to design a dressing table influenced by their chosen designer's style. Students were restricted to a maximum size and had to include drawers in their design.

After considering their chosen designer's work, the students modified the design brief to suit their individual needs. Teachers set them a task in which they had to find interesting characteristics or features of their chosen designer's work. They laid tracing paper over their research and copied interesting lines, curves, shapes and forms which they could later use for their own furniture design. This helped the students generate a number of initial ideas which they could explore and refine to produce a final design. Teachers encouraged their students to annotate their work, despite it no longer being required for Achievement Standards, on the grounds that it helps them justify their decisions and explain their design thinking.

Students were expected to produce four drawings of their final design:

orthographic – to include section and hidden detail
exploded drawing of part of their design
isometric – rendered to show material
oblique – rendered to show different material finish

Promote the design for the dressing table

Students were given a choice in how they produced the promotion for their dressing table design. They could either scan a rendered drawing of their final design proposal or use SketchUp to make a version. The students incorporated their design into another poster which promoted their design and explained how it was influenced by their chosen designer.

SketchUp

A school-wide anti-plagiarism campaign began when students were part way through the unit and although this wasn't something Jez and Hi sung had planned for the assignment, it was easily incorporated. Although plagiarism isn't a particular problem at Westlake Girls', staff were concerned at how easy it is for students to copy work from the internet. The campaign aimed to pre-empt rather than stop an existing problem. The school librarian produced a PowerPoint presentation to show at all assemblies. This helped clarify what is and isn't acceptable, and explained what sort of referencing students need to include in their work. In response to this initiative, the class was asked to go back through their research work and find references for everything they had used.