High School Students Run a Design Studio

This summer, I have had the great opportunity to teach high school students design, as part of a college Young Artists Residency program at the Art Institute of Boston @ Lesley University. Students of my Graphic Design Techniques course collaborated with students from another graphic design course, and a fashion design course, to create branded fashion design look books.

The course only met seven times during the summer session, and students worked approximately 10 hours to design a brand, clothing designs and layouts for the books. Students had about 45 minutes of total time training on two pieces of software to aide in their quest, and I am confident in saying they may know more of the tools than my undergraduate students. I am totally blown away by the ability of the high school students to learn, adapt and improvise when given total autonomy over creative direction.

There were also some interesting observations from the educator point of view. First, if this is an example of the capacity of a group of 15-18 year old students to work, then I most certainly must re-evaluate my undergraduate courses to make sure the same capacity and benchmark are attainable and appropriate. Secondly revolves around the concept of autonomy. In Dan Pink’s TED talk on “The Surprising Science of Motivation” , he talks about the rewarding effects of giving employees (or in this case students), levels of autonomy over their work, time and output. High school students especially come from an environment of low autonomy, and most since primary school, have never had a chance to make determinations as to what is valuable to them. Why do you think students love hands on class projects so much over lecture and more traditional approaches?

Humans are social by nature. We need to move and operate within systems and networks to feel fulfilled and valued. While this semester had planned assignments, some solo and some in groups, the power of this natural social behavior may have only been brushed upon. Why try to work in groups, when we can just work in groups? Once the collaboration project started, I immediately encouraged my students to consider themselves a working design studio, rather than students in a class. Now, it would be silly of me to think just be saying you’re a ‘working design studio’, that students believe me totally. However, by giving students credit for actually having ideas, and trust to produce them well, students open up just a bit more to allow creative juices out, and confidence in. Those two things make for a killer creative combination.

Look Books: