Artist Hall of Fame Nominees

Project Brief

The students are given the responsibility of nominating one Artist to the fictitious Artist Hall of Fame. To do this they need to research the life and work of any artist and present their case to the class, in under 3 minutes. As the main, but not necessarily only, visual to help in their case they must layout either a poster or single magazine spread that includes at least the following information:

• The artist’s name
• A sample of their most famous/important work
• A brief paragraph or two summarizing why they should be inducted
• Any imagery you think would be useful to your cause
• Sources used in your research

The visual and presentation needs to make a compelling case for why their artist deserves to be inducted, so forcing them to focus less on boring stuff like where they were born or where they studied, and more on:

• What makes them special/important as an artist?
• What works did they produce?
• Were they influential/controversial?

Grading criteria:

• Preproduction work - 20 sketches, 20 reference images in a moodboard, 3 comps (10%)
• Composition quality - how well the various elements come together as a balanced whole (35%)
• Use of Typography - how well the typefaces and their arrangement support the message (35%)
• Presentation creativity - how unique was your method of presenting the poster and candidate and how well you kept the class’ attention for the whole 3 minutes (10%).
• Evident research quality (10%)

Learning Objectives

• To practice their research and presentation skills.
• To practice laying out paragraphs of text with the use of a grid.
• To practice using visual hierarchy tools to layout text with imagery on a single page in a compelling way.
• To practice using color effectively within a composition
• To practice working through the creative process from gathering inspiration through to final design.

Deliverables

• one 3-minute in-class presentation along with bibliography of at least 3 sources.
• At least 20 preliminary sketches
• A moodboard showing visual references and inspiration
• One poster or magazine spread, any size

Reflections

Why not Type Designers?

Originally this assignment asked the students to research Typeface designers, but after a few semesters, I realized the project needed to be more relevant to the students. The learning outcome of discovering more about the people behind typefaces was less important than their enthusiasm for the task, so I've made the subject of the poster/spread open to their interests.

Avoid Duplicates

I usually create and share a Google Sheet with the students so they can let the rest of the class know which type designers have been taken and ensures no duplicates.