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A Creative Curriculum

2024

 

A digital curriculum of prompts, exercises, and resources designed in conjunction with the exhibition An Atlas of Es Devlin, at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. 

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Role: Illustration, animation, UI/UX, content creation

Project overview

This was a collaborative cross-departmental effort to create a resource that answered the question, “how is the work of a stage designer relevant to someone’s everyday life?” A Creative Curriculum was inspired by the way Es Devlin sustains and adapts her artistic process, this digital resource provides prompts and exercises to foster creative thinking. The curriculum continued to grow an evolve over the course of the exhibition, where creativity is approached through a different lens and theme each month. 
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Audience and Goals

Ages: 15+

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Goals:

  • Distill key learning outcomes of the exhibition 

  • Offer a diverse range of asynchronous activities

  • Encourage creative thinking in different learning environments​

Web layout

The monthly themes are a break down of Es Devlin's process and practice. I led the design of web page layouts, using sketches to break up themes and content, and ultimately make the page feel more lively.

Sketches

Visual style

No matter the scale of the project, Es Devlin stats with a pencil and paper, so i wanted to pay homage to her process with hand drawn pencil line sketches. 

For each themed page I created an animation followed by illustrations that broke up sections of the page. tried to think about how these themes come up in the world around us, beyond the field of design.

Example, animation for April: Ideation and iteration, I illustrated a dancer, capturing their process of iterating and building upon different moves. 

I often drew inspiration from my own environment, so for February: Texts, I drew the music section of my local library, letters and notes on a wall of my favorite stationary shop, to even graffiti and posters I noticed in the streets of East Village. 

Compilation of banner animations 

Compilation of illustrations

Curriculum content

I led creation of prompts and exercises in collaboration with a different member of the learning department each month. Prompts are short quick activities, whereas exercises are longer and may require more exploration. 

I also collaborated with the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library to find books in their collection that relate to the theme and developed short videos. 

Four iterations of Cinderella pop-up books for April: Ideation and Iteration. 

User testing

We conducted user testing with members of Design Hive, a youth-led teen design cohort. They reviewed the web pages and completed some of prompts and exercises, followed by virtual discussion. Student examples:

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Book portrait exercise from December: A Creative Life.

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Iteration exercise from April: Ideation & Iteration. 

Insights

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Who do you think

this curriculum is for?

The visual design and format to curriculum titles are engaging.

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“It made me feel that I know I am going to do an activity, I feel a part of the website.” 

Content is

balanced for different

learners.

There needs to be less text and more visuals.​

“...visuals are really helpful, especially when they’re used to visualize

a step by step process, such as the cube exercise.”

Curriculum language is too

advanced 

“This feels like an ap level.”

“With enough tweaking I think you could apply any prompts to any subject. They're pretty versatile.” 

“I think this is a website my art teacher would love to look at with his students to break down certain things.”

Art and design

teachers.

teens

interested

in art.

Prompts & exercises can be done individually or in groups .

“You can be any type of learner and get something from this page.”

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