DISSENT BY DESIGN is a book that was produced during 2022-2023 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.  It was on this date that I began a social media campaign on LinkedIn that directly addressed the invasion of a Sovereign country by a rogue super power. As a Graphic Designer I felt it was my obligation to do all I can to bring attention to this atrocity and bring the narrative to the forefront of the conversation so that we help end this conflict in all theways we can.  This book is a call to action, in the form of 'social media' posts throughout a one year period of time in our collective past, it is a documentation in chronological order of what happened, when and who was to blame and how many sufferred.   FInally, this book illustrates how Graphic Designers can use their knowledge as storytellers to forward a conversation about the most important things in our lives and how to preserve them.  We can be a vehicle of change and/or social engagement, to help people understand all the complex problems we face and to begin the process of solving those problems.  This is a way forus to bring past narratives to light once again, to rejoin the conversations that have been lost, and to further discuss and provide solutions through dialogue and change.

This google doc lesson includes a demonstration video of how to create a mandala in Photopea, a set of written instructions and an assignment that goes along with the video.

Reading and creating comic strips and comic books are engaging ways to promote literacy at any grade level and across content areas. The students in this video are members of a high school comic book club and have access to drawing tablets and Adobe Photoshop, so they can achieve sophisticated results. Even without such software, however, teachers can still integrate digital comics into a wide range of teaching situations.

There are a number of comic books, especially contemporary ones, that are not “school appropriate,” so you might want to guide students’ web research on comic books.

Google document outlining the steps for a cross curricular activity between a class studying Shakespeare (in my case it was Theatre) and an Art class (in my case it was Advanced Graphic Design). Students are tasked with designing a
t-shirt using a quote or image from Shakespeare and the school logo and name.

This book was written by two artist educators who teach digital art and design studio foundation classes. While teaching classes that take place in software laboratories, we noticed that many of our students expected to learn to use software, but gave little consideration to aesthetics or art and design history. A typical first day question is, "Are we going to learn Photoshop in this class?" This book is a mash-up of the Bauhaus Basic Course and open source software such as Inkscape, Gimp, Firefox, and Processing. We have taken some of the visual principles and exercises from the Bauhaus Basic Course and adapted them into exercises for these applications.

Digital Foundations uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. All students of digital design and production—whether learning in a classroom or on their own—need to understand the basic principles of design in order to implement them using current software. Far too often design is left out of books that teach software for the trade and academic markets. Consequently, the design software training exercise is often a lost opportunity for visual learning. This revised edition updates the original text for use with Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 software.Order a print copy: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/digital-foundations-introduction-to-media-design-with-the-adobe-creative-cloud-revised-edition/24461332

This textbook -- written by a group of select experts with a focus on different aspects of the design process, from creation to production -- addresses the many steps of creating and then producing physical, printed, or other imaged products that people interact with on a daily basis. It covers the concept that, while most modern graphic design is created on computers using design software, the ideas and concepts don’t stay on the computer. The ideas need to be completed in the computer software, then progress to an imaging (traditionally referred to as printing) process. Keywords are highlighted throughout and summarized in a Glossary at the end of the book, and each chapter includes exercises and suggested readings.

How to Canva: Tips and Tricks is an online introductory course on Canva. It is designed as open educational resources for educators and all. In this course, you will learn how to customise text, text effects, colours, photos, videos and elements plus pro tips and Ideas for Creative uses of Elements, Keywords and Styles. The videos are concise, purposeful and delivered in easy-to-follow lessons that progressively build one's skills over time. By the end of this course, you will be able to create an attractive Instagram post. Click on View Resource and let's get started!

This resource was created for first time individuals who are looking to meditate. It also serves as an example of a job aide or infographic. This was created as a part of a larger course on meditation. 

Looking for a powerful yet simple, low-tech way to integrate digital storytelling into your classroom? Then I’ve got an answer for you: Paper Slide Videos. Just like the name implies, this technique actually involves the sliding of papers to create a movie. Yep, without needing much time, effort and/or tech skills, a fabulous video can be produced. Here’s how:

Lesson plan for a project that can be used as an icebreaker or introduction to Adobe Photoshop. Students will use Photoshop and self images to illustrate a place or situation where they "would rather be."

Lesson plan for a project that can be used as an icebreaker or introduction to Adobe Photoshop. Students will use Photoshop and self images to illustrate a place or situation where they "would rather be."

This syllabus for a semester-long college course includes the course description, relevance, required materials, learning outcomes, and topical calendar.

This is a unit on learning how to use a vector editing program (gravit.io) used for my online graphic design class. This program is free and runs in the browser so was optimal for my students using chromebooks. Each of the 6 lessons has a written lesson tutorial with images, as well as a screencast video that goes over that lesson. 4 of the 6 lessons have an assignment associated with them. There is an outline for what each lesson goes over listed underneath the links for that lesson. All written tutorials, lessons and assignments are in google docs. Lesson 1 - Basics | Screencast Lesson 1 | Assignment Lesson 1What is Gravit.io?Canvas & ZoomSelecting ObjectsMoving objectsCopy/Paste/Delete/DuplicateSupersize, Rotate, FlipGrouping & UngroupingArranging ObjectsAlign and DistributeSavingLesson 2 - Shapes, Paths, Pen | Screencast Lesson 2 | Assignment Lesson 2Basic ShapesBasic Star-based ShapesAdjusting ObjectsShapes vs. PathPath OperationsPen ToolLesson 3 - More Paths & Type | Screencast Lesson 3 | Assignment Lesson 3 CC BY SA 3.0 Rebecca EricksonDrawing Curves with the PenTypes of NodesThe Freehand Tool & SimplifyFills & BordersThe Type ToolLesson 4 - More on Type | Screencast Lesson 4 | Assignment Lesson 4Working with Type: Text vs. PathsType AlignmentCharacter, Word and Line SpacingPutting Type on PathsLesson 5 - Gradients & Textures | Screencast Lesson 5Using the Gradient ToolFine-tuning Gradient PositionAdding More Points to a GradientWorking with TexturesAdding NoiseLesson 6 - Clipart & Vectorizing Images | Screencast Lesson 6About openclipart.orgImporting Open Clip Art into GravitVectorizing Images

In this tutorial students will use some simple tools to create a border and add a drop shadow to create a postcard effect using a free browser-based image-editing program (pixlr.com).

This tutorial will go over how to create a "pop out" effect in a free, browser-based, raster-based editing program (pixlr.com).

When we know how to communicate effectively, we can plan our designs around a target audience. Included is a lesson video and accompanying notes.