The second day of the National Pre-tech training Program began with a brief recap of what they learnt on Day one. Next, the trainer, Jerry introduced the topic of Day which was “Elements of Design and the Principles of Design”. He began by defining Elements of Design as the fundamental parts or aspects used to compose any work of design. The first element of design he spoke about was typography. The trainer explained that the style of the words used in a design is important in today’s competitive world as it helps individuals or businesses have distinctive brand identities. To help students have a better understanding he used the logos of the World Economic Forum and Circumspect. Students were tasked to identify the contrast between the two logos; one student identified the World Economic forum logo to belong to a company with a formal organizational structure while the Circumspect logo belonged to an organisation that is targeted at women.
Next, the trainer added that typography includes the font type, font weight, font colour and space. The ladies were then asked to search google for fonts with their phones to be able to identify and understand how they can affect change to the fonts on their phones. Participants were then tasked to analyse the National Pre-tech training Program Flyer, identify the fonts and how colour was used to emphasize the text. Later, the ladies were engaged in an activity, they were to sketch out the National Female Pretech Training Flyer with their unique format but with the emphasis on the font size. After 5 minutes of the activity, the students exchanged their works and commented on their partner’s work. Miss Leticia, the creative Director also gave her feedback on some of the work of the ladies.
The trainer then introduced the different types of fonts where he mentioned the Serif and Sans Serif. He further explained how Serif fonts display seriousness while sans serif fonts have a more relaxed tone to them. Miss Leticia, added that it is important to limit the number of fonts used for your artwork.
The next element of design the ladies learnt was lines, the different shapes and the uses of lines in the design. The class then had a debate about shapes and also why certain shapes are Geometric, Organic or Abstract. Each student took turns to explain why they thought a particular shape was either Geometric. Organic or Abstract. The trainer also taught students another element of design which is colour; he did this using the colour wheel. He explained that colours are used to depict moods and temperature. Students were engaged in an activity, this activity was to create a flag for their neighbourhood. After 15 minutes of working on their activity students gave short presentations of their flags, explaining what they meant and the inspiration behind the colours and shapes of the design.
Later, students were taken through the principles of design and the types of principles of designs. The trainer defined principles of design as the rules a designer follows to create an effective composition that cleanly delivers a message to an audience. For the training, students were asked to download Canva and Google Classroom on their phones.
Next, they were taken through the Graphic Design Process, which is comprised of a creative brief, Research, Brainstorming, Analyzing ideas, Execution and Feedback
After today’s session, students were paired up to participate in a game called Guess the Word. This was an interactive and fun game to watch.
