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By now, if you have been following our posts, you will be an expert in graphic design (or at least very close)! As educators, we must ask the question- how can we use graphic design in the classroom?

Broadly, graphic design can be used to teach students how to visually express themselves so that others can understand their ideas. Graphic design can be found anywhere in the classroom- from posters to power-point presentations to info-graphics. It also can be used to set up our students for the future by helping them create resumes and cover letters for employers. If students are able to present themselves in a visually appealing manner, they are more likely to get jobs in the future. If an employer is deciding between giving an interview to someone with a poorly designed/unorganized resume or someone who is demonstrating organizational and design skills, who do you think they would give it to?

Graphic design can also be used by teachers to create concept maps and info-graphics to help enhance student learning. Teachers can also use it to create flyers for school events to send home to parents/guardians. Parents/guardians receive so many flyers from schools that they rarely read all of them. If you want your idea/event to stand out above others you need to design a flyer that does that.

By watching this video, we were able to learn that colour is an important aspect of graphic design and that colour is all around us. Colour can evoke a certain mood or emotion and therefore it is important to understand the basics. Colour theory is something that we learn from a young age. Colour theory is primary (red, blue, yellow) and secondary (orange, green, purple) colours.

The main components of colour to consider are:

• Hue → the colour itself (ex. blue)
• Saturation → how intense the colour is (ex. turquoise vs. navy)
• Value → how dark or light a colour is on a scale going from white to black

The colour wheel is a key element to learning about colour. By using the colour wheel, we are able to achieve colour harmony. There are several different types of colour harmony:

• Monochromatic – one colour/hue, these colours will always match (ex. red and pink)
• Analogous – colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel (ex. red and orange)
• Complimentary – colours that are opposite on the colour wheel, this adds variety (ex. blue and orange)
• Split Complimentary – three colours using the ones on either side of the compliment, to form a triangle (ex. red, green yellow, green blue)
• Triadic – three colours that are evenly separated, creates a sticking effect (ex. orange, purple, green)
• Tetradic – four colours that create a rectangle on the wheel, two complementary pairs, often one will dominate and the others will serve as accents (ex. purple, orange, yellow, blue)

Here are some final tips for working with colours:

• make sure your colours are readable and letters can be seen
• too much colour can be overwhelming
• balance colours with white, black, and grey
• consider the tone of the message you are sending (less saturation can be more professional looking

Here are some colour palettes: