Day 55: 25th Day @ Westhill

Friday April 20, 2012 Blog Post

The billboard project was my favorite lesson I was able to do with the students at Westhill. I love all the one's I've done but felt like it was a challenge, and exciting opportunity to see students work together and compete against one another at the same time. I love that the project has real life application and there is a very big reward for winning. To have designed a billboard as an artist is a great accomplishment. I thought about it afterward and thought that if I was to do this again, I would want the students to get five minutes to pick one more piece to get voted on, so the teacher(s) would select the final three but the students would get to debate and discuss a 4th design. It would be fun to see that process and have them come up with one more and figure out how to agree on which one to include to see how that switches up voting. After seeing them vote on the pooping image though Jamie and I kind of didn't trust what they would pick so we narrowed things down a bit to ensure a good representation of the school with the project. I think next time with having done this once, there will be more strong solid designs and that might be more of an option. That was what I thought about today, but feel for this time we did the right thing given the designs we had. I'm very proud of it and excited to see it up! I emailed the image to Lamar and am waiting to find out when it will be up after the print job is rushed. I also sent them images of the process. I'm proud of the exhibit in the hallway. Jamie and Jeff and I went out for a drink after school Friday. I also dropped off Emily's piece. When I got there they were talking and I asked what they were talking about. They said billboards, and actually that they were talking about the exhibit I put up. Jeff said how nice it was. I never even told Jeff I was putting it up I just did it, mostly it was after school so didn't get a chance to talk to him about it. Jamie said he thought it was great I called Rachel and got her votes in. I would like to work at Westhill. I think I'd complement what Jamie and Jeff both bring to the table and give a nice spin to things there. I'd love to teach a graphic design class, as well as a documentary class, or conceptual media course.