Graphic Design Final Project: CTE Promotional Poster

Hello Students,
Your final project is to design a promotional poster that will create interest for students in taking CTE classes. You could design a poster that creates interest for a specific class or multiple classes. If your poster qualifies it will be printed and displayed on campus and you will have another great design project for your portfolio.

Project Description:
You have just been hired by me to create a promotional poster. Your goal is to design an eye-catching and engaging poster that is suitable to display on High School bulletin boards. You should have an understanding of your audience and what will appeal to them. Your design can be creative and fun but should look professional.

Project Specifications:

• Poster dimensions must be 36"x24"
• Must be created in CMYK with Adobe Illustrator and/or Photoshop
• Must use bold eye catching colors
• Must be created with no more than 2 different font styles
• Must be readable when printed from 10-15 away
• Pick a class to promote, choices are Graphic Design, Digital Photography, Video Production and Animation, Bicycle Technology or the Automotive Technician Program
• Use your own ideas to make this poster unique. Poster can incorporate artwork you or other students have created to show as examples. Poster should provide an eye-grabbing headline to interest the viewer and guide them to a "call to action" such as requesting more information or signing up for the class with their counselor

Project Copy:
Poster may contain this text, creative editing is encouraged as long as the message stays on point:

• Headline: "Learn (choose a class to feature) at Santa Cruz High School!" or an alternate headline could start with "Would you like to learn _______?"
• Body copy example (would be different for other classes): Do you enjoy learning through hands-on projects and activities? Learn digital media skills in our newest computer lab with cutting edge software and equipment. ROP offers several exciting classes in your school. Talk to your counselor to sign up for one of these great courses. Space is limited, sign up today!
• Here is what our students are saying about this great course : "Insert student testimonial quote here" <-- you will need to interview students for these quotes...
• Success Starts Here! Career Technical Education is your first step!

Grading and Evaluation:

• Poster design should be clean, eye-catching and professional
• You will be evaluated on your ability to communicate your concept to me and incorporating feedback into your design.
• Poster design should include all relevant and important material
• Design should showcase effective use and understanding of: Typography, color theory, application of elements and principles of design
• Poster will be judged on how well it incorporates your clients input and how that is translated into your design
• Poster needs to meet all specifications
• Due by end of finals

Student Examples:

Portfolio Project

Hello Students,

Having a polished and professional looking portfolio is key to your success in finding work after High School and moving on to developing a career. Download the ROP Portfolio Handbook to use as a guide for creating your own portfolio, a requirement in all ROP classes.

Portfolio's are due by beginning of May and must be ready for presentation, evaluation and critique (make it perfect!) but that is no reason to slack on this project. You should put great time and care into creating the professional side of your portfolio and then you will be ready to add your creative projects as the semester progresses. You will complete a digital version as a PDF file for evaluation. Class winner will be able to print and prepare their portfolio for inclusion in the Portfolio Showcase competition. Everyone can print a copy to keep and report covers will be provided if possible.

Remember that the best portfolio in class will be sent to the portfolio design competition that ROP has at the end of each school year, your portfolio will compete against other graphic design classes across the county, and there are prizes!

A judge evaluates print portfolio's from past entrants...

Part A: Portfolio Cover Design Assignment:

• Design an eye catching cover design for you your portfolio
• Include your name, the title of this class, the school you are currently attending and the year
• Design your cover for standard letter size 8.5X11 inch paper
• When you are done post your portfolio cover design to your blog
• Portfolio structure design is due today
• Cover design is due on wednesday

Use an iterative design process to find the best color/type solutions for your design...

Part B: Portfolio Development Long Term Assignment:

• Your portfolio must be created in Indesign and the final file must be a multi-page PDF document
• Use the Pages palette to create multiple pages for your portfolio with Indesign
• Your portfolio cover, table of contents and all materials should look clean and consistent. Use consistent design style across all aspects of your portfolio, this includes color, typography, layout and style

Your Portfolio must contain in this order: See portfolio handbook for more details...

1. Cover page with your name, class title, year. Spend some time on this, it should show good design skill and be reflective of your personality
2. Table of contents
3. Letter of Introduction
4. Resume
5. Handwritten Job Application 
6. List of References
7. Letter of Recommendation -  cannot be from your ROP teacher or a family member
8. 3 or more work samples with written explanation about the work, why is it important to your career choice? What did the project entail, what were the challenges and difficulties? Give us details.

How Your Portfolio Is Evaluated:

• Contains required content and format
• Well organized
• Free of grammer problems
• ROP related work samples
• Shows creativity
• Nice appearance
• Shows skill development
• Appropriate for use in job search
• Professional appearance
• Nice presentation
• Shows good design and wise choice of color palettes
• Shows consistency across all pages
• Reflects your style, personality and interests

A print portfolio can take many forms, it can be professionally bound, stitched by hand or bound with a spiral ring... how will you create your portfolio, what will make it stand out above the rest?

Tips For Winning The Portfolio Competition:

In the last few years the portfolio competition has gotten fierce, especially for the graphic design category. Other schools have printing facilities that we don't, so you must use your creativity, ingenuity and eye for design to stand above the rest. Consider purchasing a large format portfolio binder and printing work samples at 11X17", or consider making a hand-bound book format to showcase your work. The limits are only contained by your creativity!

Use this as a rough guide to laying out your own portfolio...

Ok, have fun!

Previous Student Portfolio Cover Design Samples:

P.S. There are more samples on the back table for review...

Design and Create an Original Magazine Cover

Hello Students,

Your new assignment is a combination of using Digital Photography and 3 programs to create one product, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign. Find a high resolution image and process the photo with filters if you wish in photoshop and use it to design an original magazine cover with Adobe Indesign. You will create additional artistic elements with Illustrator as well. This project is a good lesson in utilizing multiple software tools. You need to use original photos and content!

Part 1 - Launch and Explore InDesign

• If you are confident with Indesign you can skip ahead, if you feel you need more familiarity with Indesign than read through and try out all the tools in Indesign before proceeding.
• Go to the dock and launch InDesign, or look in your Applications folder to find the app
• Go to the File Menu and create a New Document
• Go to the Window Menu and set your Workspace to Advanced
• Explore the tool bar, click on the text tool and draw a text box to create text, try the shape tools and look for the color modifiers to change colors
• Open all the palettes under the Window Menu and explore all the functions, look at the quick guides below for reference
• See if you can create text of different sizes, change the colors, modify the text kerning and tracking and draw shapes in different colors and with different borders

Hidden Tools and Shortcut Keys

Character Formatting Panel In InDesign

Paragraph Formatting Panel in InDesign

Part 2 - Magazine Cover Design Project:

• Think up a magazine topic and title for your cover design, create a simple pencil sketch of the cover including all photos, art, titles, headers, text insets Your magazine must have a title header that is created in Illustrator, a cover photo that has been post-processed in Photoshop, a photo inset, text headlines with effects created with Indesign. It should also include all details such as month, date, edition number, etc.
• When you design is ready grab a camera and shoot your cover photo, use Photoshop to post process the image for your cover. Crop, colorize, convert to black and white, use filters for an illustration look.... do something creative with your cover image
• Design your magazine title with Illustrator, spend time making the typography and any illustrative elements look perfect. Consider colors that will blend well with your cover image
• Create decorative borders or inset elements with Illustrator
• Set up your document in Indesign for standard letter size.... import all your different elements and begin arranging them on the page.... create any additional typographic elements in Indesign... use colors that are complimentary and read well.
• Add your image insets and additional details for a polished look, make it perfect!
• If you need some standards to go by or some inspiration, check out this tutorial: Magazine cover design tutorial with Indesign

Here is the progression of my magazine cover design. I took the photo, processed it with Photoshop, added colorful borders in Illustrator and brought it into Indesign to create my magazine cover design.

Designs are due Friday, this should be another great design piece for your portfolio!

 - Mr.W


Student Examples: