8
Multi-Discipline & Applied Arts & Geography, Social Studies
Form & Function in Word Art, Advertising, Urban Design

Essential Questions:
1. How are the shapes and forms around us imagined, designed, and created? What choices are made? What kinds of goals dictate the design of public forms?
2. What are the effects that public design has on us as “participating spectators”? What is our role in a “dialogue” with public design?

Activities & Explorations

8A: Focus on the public written word as art – what do fonts mean? Learners look at corporate logos, book covers and movie posters, focusing on the lines, curves, angles, and proportions of characteristic lettering, guided by a graphic artist. Why did the designer choose this font? How would a different font change the effect? What if the fonts for some familiar movies or books were switched? After exploring how to “read” font, learners create their own lettering for their name, a unique logo, a title, and a short, persuasive phrase.

8B: Artist-instructor prompts learners: What is an advertisement? What is the purpose of an advertisement? Learners then explore several examples of travel ads featuring exotic locales such as a mountain range, beach scene, or famous landmarks. Discussion focuses on the prominent visual and textual features of each ad. What is the overall effect of the ad? What facts and feelings do the images communicate? Do the words give additional or more specific information? Would the ad work on you? Would it persuade you to visit this location? Why or why not? This segment culminates in learners creating their own travel ads – set in a specific time period in the past or future, incorporating the technology and culture of the period.
8C: Design artist guides learners to explore urban design by juxtaposing the arrangement, appearance and functionality of existing towns and cities with urban environments of their own imaginations. What must urban designers take into account in the use of available space, accessibility for all, supporting public activity, preserving the unique character of a place, and balancing respect for heritage with support for contemporary culture? First, bridging the rare examples of pre-planned cities (Washington DC, Canberra, Islamabad) with much more common everyday attempts to adapt and improve existing urban environments, they design on paper and then implement their “ideal city” – using classroom objects and cardboard boxes to represent buildings, city blocks, streets, and open spaces. This segment closes with learners designing and creating from simple materials (wood, clay) their ideal versions of “street furniture,” the objects and pieces of equipment on streets and roads such as benches, mailboxes, phone booths, streetlights, traffic lights, bus stops, trashcans, public restrooms and fountains.