Students will create a series of formal and conceptual projects that work with design theory and principles. Students will brainstorm, make connections to the world, and solve visual problems for a wide audience; all the while accumulating understanding of design thinking (the design process).
The Videos
YouTube
PART 1: Foundational 2-D Graphic Design Projects with Alisha Brunelli
PART 2: Foundational 2-D Graphic Design Projects with Alisha Brunelli
The Projects
Project One: Big Picture, Small Parts
Project Two: Pattern Color Motif
Project Three: Formstorm a Noun
About Alisha Brunelli
Alisha Sickler Brunelli is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator living in Binghamton, New York. She works with digital software, collage, installation, and drawing to create works that explore human consciousness, inner life, inner body, meaning-making, and transcendence in the digital age. She is interested in transpersonal experiences, and the significance of quantum principles in our developing understanding of human potential.
Her teaching practice is focused on preparing students to become artists, creative makers, and innovators, life-long learners, and critical thinkers capable of adapting in the 21st century. Inspired by the work of John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, Howard Gardner, Rudolph Steiner, as well as other psychologists, education, and human development research figures, she develops curricula that elicit human potential in both the fine and broad sense.
She is trained in the teaching methodology Visual Thinking Strategies (the work of cognitive psychologist, Abigail Housen), which uses evidence-based discussion to not only enrich aesthetic development, but develop visual literacy (the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from images), a critical element in both design and studio settings, for both makers and viewers.
In small classroom/private settings, she teaches with a focus on multi-disciplinary approaches to art-making. The student/artist is first asked to touch in with their lived human experience. From here concepts are developed, and then matched/ extended to materials and modes of expression. She explores wellness modalities (in art creation) that use right brain function.
In large classroom/design studio settings, principles of design are explored to build a strong foundation of understanding in each student. She teaches with design thinking (empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing). Students are asked to be in continuous reflective and responsive discussion with a larger class audience. She believes that the core behaviors for success are practice, observation, meaningful interaction, and reflection. She believes in cultivating a growth mindset.
She received her masters of science in education from Elmira College, and bachelors of fine art degree in printmaking from Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY.
She has been teaching in the Southern Tier, NY for 20 years in a variety of settings, including private school, public K-12, and higher education.
She is founder/creative director of KAPOW! Art Studio & School (est. 2014), an art education center that focuses on progressive practices in art education, including growth mindset and individualized curriculum. She is a professor of art & design at Binghamton University (2015-present).
She practices Transcendental Meditation (www.TM.org) and enjoys both the spiritual and political significance of mindful consumption.