Art Expression and Design Thinking
PESU I/O is a peer to peer learning experience aimed at providing college students an edge with building their careers.
I was presented the opportunity to teach a course on Art Expression and Design Thinking for which I would have the unique chance of preparing the curriculum, course plan, assignments and all the grading.
My course comprised of four modules spread across four weeks The following sections dive into the topics covered.
Week 1
The first week focused primarily on an introduction to art expression. It covered major movements in art history, a practical on art techniques like watercolour painting, shading and portraits. The deliverable expected was a work of art in one's individual style.
Week 2
The second week focused on design principles and design methodology. The students were tasked with redesigning a dustbin based on problems they encountered. They were made to survey users, create an empathy map in groups, define their problem statement, ideate and present their final designs
Week 3
The third week was aimed at helping the students see the differences between art and design. It showed them that design is meant to satisfy a customer but art could be entirely for self satisfaction. Students were made to analyse the two and see which they related to more strongly.
Week 4
The final week was mainly practical in nature. Students were made to take inspiration from either an art movement or a product of their liking, based on whether they thought of themselves as artists or designers, they were made to design a product or present a work of art.
An Example: Drawing Inspiration from a Painting for a Product
The Corn Reaper
This product aims to remove the corn kernels from the corn cob in a hassle free way. I wanted to design this in order to solve a common problem that many people including my mother face.
The design is inspired from a painting from the symbolism movement called 'death of a gravedigger'. The inspiration comes from the basic idea of the painting. The painting depicts "death" as an angel, the gravedigger and the grave into which the grave digger falls. My product has a similar concept where the corn cob can be thought of as a parallel to the gravedigger and the bowl as the grave. The corn kernels fall into the bowl in a way similar to the gravedigger in the grave. The corn kernels extractor is like the angel, the shape of the main component too is inspired by the shape of the angel's wings.
In order to remove the corn kernels, the corn needs to be fit into the wings of the product ( a screw is present which can be opened that loosens the wings and can be tightened to clasp the corn. This is done in order to accommodate the different sizes of corn). The corn is then twisted and moved forward and the corn kernels fall in the bowl. Further, the bowl is detachable and can be used if the corn requires any further processing.
Testimonials
Your teaching is cool and nice, I definitely enjoyed the course, art is a special place for me, so being in the course was like having the freedom to do whatever I could think of creatively. Overall it was a very good experience.
Ratna Bojja
..Had a good experience! Got to learn things from you. It seemed as a unique io topic to work on. Design thinking activities helped me relate with my CIE projects that I presently took up as my special topic so kudos to that!!...
