Visual Communication Design at Koonung Secondary College is offered to Year 8 students as part of the Core Curriculum.

Students complete a Semester of Visual Communication Design and complete tasks focused on observational drawing, rendering, perspective drawing and the design process.

The Year 8 Visual Communication Design students complete a unit of work that is focused on teaching the skill of drawing from a single-point perspective. The students are scaffolded through a series of single-point perspective drawing tasks starting from the basics of how to draw a cube and progressing to drawing the letters of their name. Students are exposed to how to render objects and look at the effects of light on these objects.

Once students understand the fundamentals of drawing in perspective they begin the design process. They use creative thinking to explore ideas and develop a concept for a street scene- this is where brainstorming comes into play. Students use their visual diaries to annotate their research and to create visualisation drawings of their street design.

Their idea generation stage allows students to explore their creativity by incorporating ideas and designs that are related to their chosen theme. The ideas that are generated here provide students with the opportunity to explore a wide range of creative thinking.

During the developmental process students practice applying single-point perspective drawing to each of the objects they wish to include in their artwork. Once a draft has been created the final design can begin. Students work on creating their final street presentation drawings over a period of three weeks. They complete their drawing in fine-liner and students have the choice to render their design if they wish with coloured pencil.

Students are required to evaluate their final resolved design work which focuses on students providing reflective design thinking skills.

Georgina Russell
Visual Communication Design Teacher
Koonung Secondary College