The unheard of elective at Samo: Digital Design

Samo offers many interesting electives including music, dance, film, journalism (duh) and one you may have never known about: Digital Design.  Digital Design began as Regional Occupational Program (ROP) class taught by Richard McGee in the late 70s. The focus of this class is to familiarize students with computer programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign by teaching students about ad campaigns, retouching, logo design and page layout.  The Digital Design II class focuses on the same Career Technical Education (CTE) standards as Digital Design I, but is more like a studio class in which the class takes work order from all over the school, community and district. The current Digital Design teacher, Shawn Saunder, shared a current project that his two classes are currently collaborating on.  “For instance, Ms. Green, the dance teacher, needs some help with a flyer for her upcoming spring dance showcase, so my ‘Digital ones’ are going to do that for her and my ‘twos’ are going to create a step and repeat which is the big photo wall that you’ll see at movie premieres and stuff that have letters of sponsors and things like that,” Saunders said. According to Digital Design I student Arielle Walsh (’19), students typically have around one to three projects at a time which forces them to learn how to manage their time effectively. They’re obligated to deliver on their deadlines and learn how to pick which project need more time than others.  “It’s taught me to work quickly and effectively under a given time and date because we sometimes have multiple projects at once and we need to focus on turning them in at the right deadline,” Walsh said.  For other student like Marco Mathias (’19), the class has taught them how to visually analyze how the parts of a design work together to tell the message of the piece. “We learned to analyze how certain pieces of designs impact the purpose of the design,” Mathias said. “We have went over how different fonts, color schemes and how many small pieces work together to convey the message of the design.” While the Digital Design course allows students to learn many different things, the most important skill to be taken from the class would be the graphic design skills, which are becoming even more vital to know as we dive further into the digital age.“There's a lot of magical thinking associated with photoshop still… and at the end of the day if you get decent at this kind of stuff there's always a job where you can keep the lights on while you’re trying to do other things,” Saunders said.