Assignment Overview:
Covers Chapter(s): 5 Mini Art School. Can be adapted to Chapter 6 (Layout), Chapter 7 (Type), or Chapter 8 (Color)
Concepts: Identifying and analyzing the use of the elements and principles of design in the work of professional designers.
Requisite Skills: Basic page layout, ability to create PDFs, ability to screen grab or download images from the internet, ability to capture images with a digital camera or scanner. Optional: Use of slideshow type software (Slideshare, Soundslides, Adobe Spark Page, Adobe Spark Video or similar).
Assignment Details
The “Composition Idea Book” project is an individual student assignment designed to encourage students to look at the work of professional designers, and understand and analyze the use of compositional techniques in that work.
The assignment as presented here requires students to present their work in the form of a digital book (PDF) or a physical scrapbook. If preferred, students could present their findings in the form of slideshows, videos or Web pages. Slideshare, Soundslides, Adobe Spark Page, Adobe Spark Video and iMovie could be used to produce final products.
This assignment is also easily adapted to other topics including color (analyze the use of color in collected designs), type (find and analyze examples of type usage from the major font categories) or layouts (collect examples of layout types from the ‘Layout ideas you can swipe’ section of the book).
Downloadable Assets
Composition Idea Book Assignment Sheet with project checklist and criteria for grading (PDF)
Example of a completed Composition Idea Book (PDF)
Example of a color-related variation of this assignment using Adobe Spark Page
