Volunteering to give a fifteen-minute talk about what a graphic designer does is easy. Building a four-week curriculum for a split grade 7/8 class and actually teaching it is a different project entirely, and it’s the one I said yes to at Southview last year.

It all started with wanting to give my children’s teachers a gift when they graduated. Knowing that I was not going to get those daily emails from their teachers made me a little sad. I enjoyed getting the detailed thorough emails outlining what my children are working on. 

After some creative thinking, I decided to created a card that said: “Thank you, please accept this offer of 5 hours of design time as a gift”. I received an email from Matthew Gallupe saying, “You clearly know what you’re doing! Would you be willing to come in and help teach design and marketing to our grade 7/8 classes. I said of course I would love to! 

In the fall, we had a brief meeting and outlined what to include in the program. Later that week, Mr. Gallupe sent me an outline in Google Drive. It was a Google slideshow of what we agreed to teach and what to cover each day since it was only a week long for each of the 3 grade 8 classes at Southview P.S.. 

Over the next few months, I worked on the design and marketing course. I enjoyed it so much that I included more content than needed, however that helped when teaching so that if something was not getting their attention I could switch to something a little more fun or interesting. 

I prepared and designed a marketing analysis final assignment (group project), and a class project (individual project). Although I had AI help me, my main focus was to make sure the course was fun for grade 8s. 

They had to research and find a ‘healthy brand’ to complete their analysis on. After looking at examples of the new symbols on packaging and the nutrition labels the students knew what to look for. Since the Canadian Government introduced the new front of package symbols, I thought it would be good to connect the group project to the real world, and their cooking class. My goal other than making it fun, was to make sure that their final project met some sort of curriculum criteria.

After watching a CTV news clip and learning about the new symbols, I showed them how to know if the it’s a healthy brand or not. If the brand claims to be ‘healthy’, are they really? Or do they have the symbols on them showing they’re high in sodium, sugar or trans fat. 

The Outcome

By the end of the week, the students had learned the basics of design and marketing. Understood the basics of branding. Could tell the difference between a brand that follows their brand guidelines and a brand that doesn’t. 

They spent the week working on their final project alongside their branding project using Adobe Express. I made sure to ask them all the question, “did you like Adobe Express more than Canva?” and many of them excitedly replied, “yes!”. The students had to follow a brand guideline and create a social media post for a fake brand called, “Kingston Smoothie Bar”. The brand identity was created using AI so I could focus on creating the design and marking course. After carefully choosing a font pair and colour scheme, I created the project outlines. The students were told to only use those fonts and colours, no other fonts or colours could be used and that if they did not follow the brand guidelines they would fail the project.

Each day I would go around and have them show me their social media post in Adobe Express eagerly waiting to see their designs. I would ask them, “did you use the fonts and colours provided or did you pick your own?”

The students that replied, “I picked my own”, I would tell them, “You’re fired” and then take a moment to educate the class and reinforce, if you do not follow your client’s brand guidelines then you will most likely either get fired or not make that client very happy. 

Throughout the course, we would watch videos to break it up between body breaks and recess and lunch. That way they could retain all the information, since it was a lot to learn. The YouTube videos helped a lot especially watching commercials by big companies like Nike featuring an NBA star I knew they would recognize, RBC bank featuring a well known actor they wouldn’t know unless they were an adult (so they could learn about audiences), SkinnyPop featuring Jennifer Aniston (again target audience is adults). Last but not least, a commercial for electric cars by GM motors featuring comedy legend, Will Farrell. GM motors has kept their logo the same over time but only adjusted slightly, so I used that brand as an example of logo evolution.

In an effort to provide value outside of the classroom, should they take it upon themselves to learn more about design and marketing, I had them watch YouTube videos of my former brand identity and colour theory teacher from St. Lawrence College (2005-08) It helped teach the basics of brand identity and lead into the branding project of creating a social media post for a fake brand.

Side note: If you’re interested in taking this course yourself or teaching it to your grade 8-12 students, you can purchase it on my PayHip store by clicking here. 

Many of them understood the assignment, and some struggled and wanted to choose their own styles which is understandable. I did have them help me get to know them on the first day, I had them answer questions like, do you enjoy problem solving, and they would stand next to the sign they aligned with best, or that they agreed with. The activity process was well known to the students used by their teachers. Miss Bridgen suggested I use that process and it worked great. They either agreed with the statement or didn’t and it helped me to get to learn what might interest them. Turns out a lot of them did not like problem solving but did like creative problem solving. A few decided it was not their thing and were asked, “do you see yourself being the type of adult that would hire a specialist to solve a problem for you, in other words hire a designer to complete that for you”, and they they agreed.

It was quite the moment seeing the first group present using the Canva template I created and provided them. 

How the program worked

The class rotated through three subjects on a cycle: coding one week, cooking the next, and then design and marketing with me and Mr. Gallupe. That structure meant I wasn’t a guest speaker dropping in to say “I’m a graphic designer, here’s my job.” I had a real block of time to actually teach, and I used it.</p>