Why Teach Art? (3)

PERSPECTIVE I: ART ED TO GROW ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS
PERSPECTIVE II: ART ED TO TEACH DESIGN THINKING
>>PERSPECTIVE III: ART ED TO TEACH ENTREPRENEURSHIP
 
High-school- and college-level art provide an opportunity for students to learn principles of basic product design and entrepreneurship.

I'll give you three example lessons.

1.
In the first case, I exposed the students to an emerging tech, AR.

To help them understand the technology's opportunities and limitations, I charged them with proposing an AR app to solve one of 8 teacher-provided problems.
(Older students with adequate teacher support could have pitched their own user problems, but mine were high-school freshmen engaged in distance learning.)

First, they had to write about their imaginary user, and why this problem was a pain-point. Then, they explained the steps by which their user would solve the problem today, without AR. Then, they listed resources available to their user (specific websites, friends, etc). Finally, they sketched an interface for their AR app, and they explained how it would help a user solve his/her problem.

Also, we talked through the hyperreality problem (that is, the threat of an AR-caused dystopian future, as depicted in the film Hyperreality). We brainstormed solutions.


2.
In the second case, I exposed the students to Seth Godin's ideas from his book Purple Cow:

• The era of making average products for average people is dead, and new products should target niche consumers, lest they become invisible me-too brands.
• Entrepreneurs are less successful when they intend to spend money interrupting people with ads; they're more successful when they build the marketing into the product, so the product itself is exciting and surprising. Surprising products spread organically.

I gave students a dozen examples of purple cows (remarkable products), and then they found their own examples in all different categories.

3.

The third case asked students to role-play as professionals. Half became clients and half designers. Clients wrote creative briefs for architects, concept artists, visual merchandising managers directors, or ad agency creatives. Designers took the briefs, conducted research, and created designs for their clients. Then the clients and the designers went back and forth through two revision cycles.


These cases provoked students to reflect on challenges they'd face in the real world, whether they're trying to bring products to market, or trying to distinguish themselves as freelancers (in which case they themselves are the product).