HIGH SCHOOL

Rachel Wintemberg

When I was a child, every family had vinyl records, magazines, and newspapers laying around. High-school graphic design assignments reflected the world we grew up in. How many high-school students in the 1980s didn’t have at least one album cover design in their portfolio? Today, food packaging is one of the few remaining forms of print media still found in every home.

A high-school graphic design classroom is both a laboratory and a think tank. It’s a place where students can process, analyze, respond to, experiment with, and create visual design. What better way to introduce commercial design than with an assignment that combines typography, photography, cartooning, and logo and game design?

What better way to introduce commercial design than with an assignment that combines typography, photography, cartooning, and logo and game design?

My students use Wacom tablets, Photoshop, Illustrator, iMacs, and scanners—but they still rely on the elements of art and principles of design. Then, as now, the goal of the commercial artist is to communicate with the consumer through visual imagery.

Anthony P.

In this lesson, students invented an original breakfast cereal and imaginary food company. They created a mascot and logo using Photoshop and Illustrator, learned how to create 3D lettering, photographed food, and created a game for the back of their cereal box.

Our favorite day was the food photo shoot. Students cut fruit, poured milk and juice, chose their favorite cereals, and snapped photographs.

To start, we looked at boxes of popular cereals and identified traits common to all brand mascots. Students broke into small groups for this discussion. While each student designed their own box, they also worked in groups during the cereal photo shoot. This enabled everyone to collaborate on their setups and create more interesting photos.

 I handed each group a worksheet including photos I took of cereal boxes. Using the worksheet, each group brainstormed a list of common mascot traits. They noticed that the mouths of the characters were disproportionately large, always smiling, and that the characters were sometimes looking directly at the cereal and sometimes out at the viewer. They also observed that the characters all had a bouncy demeanor, giant eyes, and unusually large heads. These mascots were ecstatic—they would do anything to eat this cereal.

Emmanuel H.

Students used pencil and paper to draw their own imaginary characters and outlined them with black permanent marker. Students then scanned and colored their drawings in Photoshop. I uploaded the files to the school’s cloud storage and emailed them to students.

After additional coloring of their mascots on their tablets, students saved their images as a PNG file (a flat image with a transparent background). For this project, all design assets needed to have transparent backgrounds.

Next, students invented the name of their imaginary cereal and used Photoshop to create 3D lettering. Students were required to select a photo from their cereal photo shoot for their final box design. This photo would be used for both the front of the box and the game on the back of the box.

For the games, most students started with an online maze generator before adding text and other elements. A photo of the cereal was then placed at the end of the maze and the mascot at the beginning. Students’ games had to link the mascot to the food with an interactive story.

Students also invented parent companies and created logos in Illustrator. I created a step-by-step YouTube tutorial and each student worked through the process at their own pace.

Seryna G.

It’s easy to create a cereal box template by unfolding a snack-sized container and placing it on a scanner, or students can download a free online template. An effective cereal box design will draw the viewer’s eye around the panel and use imagery to tell a timeless story.

After cutting out and assembling the boxes, students staged a final photo shoot to document their work. The projects were proudly displayed in the hallway for the school community to enjoy.

The cereal box is the perfect vehicle for introducing the medium of digital art and graphic design. More detailed instructions for this lesson are found at the Resource below.

Rachel Wintemberg teaches digital art and computer animation at Perth Amboy High School in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and is a contributing editor for SchoolArts. rachwintemberg@paps.net
Cereal Box Design