Aylward School and Jonathan Lucas

Duration: 1 week - 2 sessions per day
Teacher: Mark Rogers (Head of Department)
Students: Years 8 & 10

Jonathan Lucas is Creative Director of Advantage, a consultancy specialising in advertising, graphics and new media. He was matched with Aylward by the Design Council.

Activity

Mark and Jonathan's activity was inspired by a genuine need of the Design & Technology (D&T) department to promote the subject to students. Because the school is part of the Excellence in Cities scheme pupils can choose to drop the subject at 14 - therefore the brief was to design a D&T interactive presentation for CD-ROM and the web that would promote the subject to Year 9 students and parents when considering GCSE options.

Starting on the Monday, following an introduction to branding from Jonathan and a presentation of his company's work, the students were split into mixed teams for a brainstorming exercise. Each team was asked to tackle a different area of D&T for the CD-ROM.

Next day the teams came up with logo ideas for each focus area as well as storyboarding ideas for a homepage animated sequence. The storyboards were developed further on day three and presented to the class.

The last two days were very busy as the teams created and assembled the props they needed and began writing, creating artwork and filming. Each group organised something different, for example a textiles group filmed a catwalk show while a food group concocted mixtures that would create the perfect 'splat' when hurled at a glass screen - both for use as short promotional sequences.

Jonathan helped each team import film clips into the computer and showed how to edit, modify and manipulate them. The result was a Flash-based website that will hopefully go live in the near future.

Feedback

Designer

Jonathan was taking part in Designers into Schools Week for the second year and remained enthusiastic and committed. 'It was too important not to respond. If I hadn't made the effort to work with that school there might not have been another designer who would,' he said.

He said his motives were a concern for the quality of design graduates, the need to nurture emerging talent and a desire to inspire students to take up design. He said he felt 'sheer gratification' that three students he worked with last year had told him that the experience was the reason they were now studying the subject at A level.

Teacher

Mark said the Week was all about 'getting kids switched on to design as a career option and raising its profile with both the school and parents'.

He knew from being involved previously that the Week can motivate and inspire students, claiming it raised the GCSE grades of three or four struggling students who had incorporated the work into their final GCSE projects. Mark felt that his staff had benefited too, particularly as none were experienced in digital design: 'It was like an INSET training course for them'.

Students

Sean felt his eyes had been opened. 'I've learned how much stuff fits into a designer's work. It's bigger than I imagined - you have to consider so much,' he said. Classmate Alex felt that the experience had been markedly different to D&T lessons. 'Normally you have a certain thing to do. You're told what to do and how to do it. There was more freedom this week.' Sean added: 'We normally work alone. Team work is better - you get a range of ideas.'