Design Analysis Practice on the Class Blog

 I am wanting to use the class blog so the students can analyse each others design work and they can give feedback to each other. 

To get them comfortable with using the class blog for their work we have been uploading their work with description and explanations of what they have been doing - blog post here and blog post here

Next, we had a go at product analysis with structured questions - blog post here

This week we has our first go at analysing drawn designs for the seating project we are doing. I always do the work alongside the students as examples for them to understand what we are working on, so I used my design page for this first go at analysing designs so they felt ok about saying what they thought about it.

I put up my design page, with number on each design so they could decide which one they wanted to analyse. I also  gave them a list of questions that they had to answer in the comment section of the blog post. I have colour coded the questions here to show how i use SOLO Taxonomy to structure the questions to have an increasing level of thought and depth.

1. Which number design are you going to be analysing?
2. Which architect do you think this design was based on?
3. Which part of the design links to the architect’s design elements the most?
4. Do you think this design is suitable for the place that it is designed for? if yes, say why you think it is, and if no, say why you don’t think it is.
5. How would you improve this design?  – you are not allowed to say you wouldn’t change it as everything can be improved.

The students coped really well with their first try at this and their answers were showing analytical thinking and knowledge of the work we have been doing with the designer research.

Link to blog post - scroll down to see the students comments.

PD Presentation - Rhythm and Pattern

 Each department is taking turns to present a PD session on a Monday morning. This week was the turn of the Creative Arts department. We decided to focus on Maths and specifically, rhythm and pattern in music, design and art.

Link to presentation

Here are some of the rhythm drawing that everyone did in response to the music that was played.

Using AI for Concept Development

 Last year, with my Year 11 design students, we had a go at using AI to visualise the design developments in 3D to help with their development drawings. Blog post about it here.

This year, I want to start bringing it in a little earlier to help the students to visualise designs in 3D. I used Adobe Express and gave it the prompt to design outside seating for 4 people made from wood. I switched the prompt about a bit with garden seating, park seating to see what it came up with. I saved the ones I liked out as images. I then started putting up some inspiration images for style and composition. Playing around with both of these gave some interesting different options. Any that I found I liked, I saved as an image. There were lots that I didn't like and this took quite a bit of time, switching images in and out and changing the prompts.

I put the designs that I saved onto a Google Drawing, link here, with the inspiration images. These will be used as starting points for concept development drawings in 3D. It is a good way to see the 3D form and see how the light hits it with highlights and shadows.