DESIGN PROCESS

Designing technology to support DBAE & enhance art education

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On this page you will find a variety of documents that record my thinking about the design and creation process of my teaching, my logo and my website. 

Website Prototype

Below is a short video about my ED 791 Capstone Prototype. I designed the prototype a few months back. As an artist I have embraced the idea of building upon an idea and this is a snippet into where this website originated. When designing I was hyper aware of my audience which I determined to be primarily art educators. 

​SITE Model

We as teachers know our students come to us with unique backgrounds, prior knowledge, experiences, interest and have different learning styles. But it is easy to lose sight of this. The SITE model takes it a step further by examining the socio-economical, informational, technological, and educational sub-context requirements placed on students. By mind mapping these 4 aspects and the relation to  my art class I was able to put myself in my student's shoes and see the specific demands of my class on my students in order for them to be successful. While mapping I noticed how many of the skills overlapped and interlaced with one another. These are not solitary or isolated which is how life is. As much as we try to fit things in boxes and categories there are very few times it works out and when we do get something to fit it tends to be rather boring. 

Socio-economically my class can be demanding as students have a fee they pay when they register for the class which covers the art supplies needed for the class. Student interest is a factor since it is an elective and my job is dependent on students signing up for my class. There is a struggle there and many art teachers face this. This fine line we have to walk, a push and pull with our students that takes art classes beyond the "fun". I am still struggle finding this balance. But then one could argue this is tempered by the fact students need 1 year of a visual or performing art course to graduate. ​

​Explanation of my Logo 

On the right is the finished logo design for my website. The process was fun but also tedious because of all the iconography, the symbolism and ultimately power I was giving this visual. The logo is a representation of my research and I felt the pressure of getting it right. 

I am drawn to typography so the placement, font selection, size, etc , was thought out. I wanted art to be strong yet feel as though someone had a hand in making it. It is tangible while the tech font it clearly not. 
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Then I found this great image of a fingerprint morphing into a bar code or computer circuit. The finger print represents all kinds of things. It could be the artist, the tradition of using ones hands to create, it is also about literally taking a closer look around you, it is the notion of individuality or identity and then recently science has shifted our views. A fingerprint could be damning, it is alone in its uniqueness and in the science world it is a key to unlocking many of our technologies. The bar code can equally represent all of those same notions, it too is a creation of man. The duality of both images is why I selected them.  The idea that they both support each other, that they are interlaced was important as this is the basis of this website. In the end both images are about lines which is a great metaphor for life. All art starts with a line, lines vary in size, width, length, etc. just like a journey some lines split, fade, curve, shape, and end. 

I intentionally kept the image black and white for a few reasons. First is my personal aesthetics of liking the stark & clean quality of black and white. Also, my favorite media is ink. The second is how when one looks at the logo from afar the lines trick the eye into seeing grey and this too represents life. Rarely is something just black and white and as I get older, wiser and more educated the more grey I see in the world.
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Research
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Design Process
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Support and Next Steps