Political Cartoons Due

Cartoons are due Monday November 20th and for classes that meet the next day on the 21st.

Polictial Cartoons

Today we are studying political cartoons. Cartooning has a rich history in this nation of informing opinions, inspiring change, and even bringing criminals to justice.

Thomas Nast is considered the father of American Political cartooning. His work inspired the Democratic Donkey, Lady Columbia, and Uncle Sam. He also assisted with popularizing the Republican elephant. Nast is also credited with creating the modern Santa Claus. 

In our exploration of the history of political cartoons we will learn about how to construct a visual argument. We'll examine how cartoons are not name calling, but cleverly crafted to persuade. It is important to understand that intention of cartoons is to inform. Cartoons can be funny or sad. They can  elevate those who deserve recognition or question why thing are they are. 

The students will also create a cartoon based upon their school experience. They will learn how to craft their cartoon to their audience demographic. So that they learn the value of constructing an appropriate communication. 

These will be fun, and hopefully informative. Working with the Spyglass, the best may be published in the school newspaper. 

Intro to InDesign

We are going to be using InDesign to document our process work. InDesign is a page layout program that assists with creating multi-page documents. Books, brochures, magazines, newspapers and more can all be designed by Indesign. Typically graphic designer, editors, and illustrators have used this program to create media for their industries.

We will be doing a basic introduction on how to utilize the tools of InDesign to document our work and design process.

You should document your thumbnails, sketches, value studies and notes in your InDesign file.