Students from video production and graphic design teacher Karen Alorro’s Advanced Graphic Design Class visited Suzanne Middle School to mentor students on graphic design on Thursday, Sept. 18.
In Suzanne elective teacher Victor Lu’s graphic design class, students set out to establish their own design company, aiming to create their website and drafts of its layout. To guide this process, the mentors taught the middle school students how to brand, develop the logo and be consistent with design elements such as color.
“The goal for the visit was to expose the middle schoolers to the various aspects of design that many people do not really take seriously,” junior Vivian Chen said. “It’s really easy to go on Canva and simply just find a template, but for us, it’s more about exposing them to the real impacts of design and the many things you can actually do with it.”
The purpose of the trip was also to promote interest in Lu’s graphic design class for graphic design classes at Walnut, where they can pursue related paths and opportunities at the high school level.
“We wanted to emphasize and introduce that we do have a graphic design class in high school. We want to help them improve fast, and we need to show them what the expectation of graphic design is like at the high school level,” senior Jason Xu said.
In particular, the Advanced Graphic Design class focused most on being careful with choosing fonts and where to place certain elements. For senior Olivia Tecson, she noticed that the middle schoolers’ designs sometimes did not clearly express their message or intentions.
“What they tended to do when they designed was to pick whatever looked cool and place it down on the page. But, it doesn’t really translate well with their messages and what their graphics are trying to convey,” Tecson said. “[They should] design with somebody else in mind, and it’s important to take this into account. Then, you can start to understand why you probably should not put three different fonts together or why certain colors won’t work together. It’s all about being able to convey or express yourself through what you create. ”
From this mentoring opportunity, the high school mentors also learned valuable soft skills such as communication and leadership. As a result, these skills can translate well into social aspects of life to help them be more successful.
“It’s their speaking skills and their communication skills, where they will be able to practice articulating to their mentees what needs to change. They learn how to articulate what they feel is professional or not professional in terms of critiquing,” Alorro said. “In the real world, [my students] have to eventually learn how to present to managers, how to present to clients and if they are a manager themselves, they have to be able to communicate with their employees.”
Lu also observed how the high schoolers’ advice continued to resonate with the middle school students beyond their projects and into graphic design class.
“The consultants really gave some good suggestions,” Lu said. “[My students] built more confidence in their design skills and started to understand more about colors and applying ideas to their future projects.”
