3-D Logo and Letter Design

Submitted by: Jeanie Ritter,
Harborfields High School, in Greenlawn, NY
UNIT: Sculpture - 3-D Design
Lesson: 3-D Logo Design - Cardboard Sculpture
Grade Level: High School (adaptable to middle school - see below)
Time: Approximately 3 weeks

 

Aim:

Students will be able to define, design, and create a 3-D logo using cardboard.

 

Motivation:

The class will discuss various artists, including Robert Indiana (handout) to inspire their designs. Previous student examples may also be shown.

 

Materials:

Newsprint, Masking Tape, Drawing Paper, Drawing Pencils, Scissors, X-acto Knives, cardboard, chipboard, Oak Tag board, Construction Paper, handouts, Hot Glue Sticks, Glue Gun, brown packing tape, Gesso, Metallic Acrylics, Crystal Clear Acrylic Spray Paint (Optional: small Styrofoam cups as spacers - Optional for Paper Mache: Newspapers, brown paper toweling, Wheat Paste) Student Handout

 

Books

Robert Indiana - This volume looks at Indiana's hugely influential early Pop Art work, but focuses on his more recent and extensive work with numbers. Each of his numbers represents a phase in life and each has its own color scheme; for example, "1" is red and green and symbolizes birth, and "6" is green and red and symbolizes the peak of life.

 

Prints

The Pop Art Love Sculpture by Robert Indiana

 

Robert Indiana Reproductions

Robert Indiana, Love, Sculpture Paperweight

 

Objectives: Students will be able to:

• Discuss the handout on related artists.

• Define and understand the terms logo, composition, and balance

• Create thumbnail sketches for their 3-D logos designs in cardboard.

• Implement the techniques for working with cardboard and paper demonstrated by the teacher.

• Use brown packing tape to sharpen edges and smooth surface as demonstrated.

• Paint the completed sculpture with diluted Gesso.

• Complete the surface embellishments as planned by the student (paint etc.)

• Self-critique the completed sculpture.

Direct Instruction:

The teacher should provide handouts on artists such as Robert Indiana the highlighted artist to be looked at for inspiration. Define logos, and show examples. The teacher should discuss the various techniques that can be used, and the criteria for judging the success of the completed piece.

 

Procedures: 

1. Students design thumbnail Logos on newsprint. Enlarge the best design to 18 x 24 (46 x 61 cm) newsprint.

2. Transfer logo to cardboard (heavy poster board or corrugated cardboard). Cut two Logos with X-acto knife (teacher review safety using knives).

3. Students make spacers with scrap cardboard to go between the two layers (OR use small Styrofoam cups to space the front and back).

4. Tape chip board strips all around edges - use brown packaging tape to clean up edges. Optional - Paper Mache at this stage - Apply layer of newspaper - then second layer of brown paper toweling - allow to dry before painting.

5. Paint with Gesso - allow to dry - then paint with Acrylic Paint

6. Embellish with more paint as desired (could paint with images to show identity)

Criteria for Assessment:

1.      Design/Composition

2.      Construction

3.      Surface Embellishment

4.      Effort/Craftsmanship

 

Assessment Rubric
Student Name:						Class Period:
Assignment:						Date Completed:
Circle the number in pencil that best shows how well you feel that you completed that criterion for the assignment.		Excellent	Good	Average	Needs Improvement	Rate Yourself	Teacher’s Rating
Criteria 1 – Design and composition for logo - strong design		10 - 9	8 - 7	6 – 5 – 4	3 - 2 - 1
Criteria 2 – Construction of cardboard sculpture		10 - 9	8 - 7	6 – 5 – 4	3 - 2 - 1
Criteria 3 – Painting and surface embellishment		10 - 9	8 - 7	6 – 5 – 4	3 - 2 - 1
Criteria 4 – Effort: took time to develop idea & complete project? (Didn’t rush.) Good use of class time?		10 - 9	8 - 7	6 – 5 – 4	3 - 2 - 1
Criteria 5 – Craftsmanship – Neat, clean & complete? Skillful use of the art tools & media?		10 - 9	8 - 7	6 – 5 – 4	3 - 2 - 1
Total: 50 (Possible points)	Grade:					Your Total	Teacher Total

 

Student Handout:

---

Robert Indiana

Born in 1928 at New Castle, Indiana, as Robert Clark. Between 1945 and 1948 he studied at art schools in Indianapolis and Utica, and from 1949 to 1953 at the Chicago Art Institute School and the Skowhgan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. In 1953 and 1954 he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art and London University, after which he settled in New York. He took up contact with the painters Kelly, Smith and Youngerman. His early works were inspired by traffic signs, automatic amusement machines, commercial stencils and old trade names. In the early sixties he did sculpture assemblages and developed his style of vivid color surfaces, involving letters, words and numbers. In 1966 he had exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Eindhoven (Van Abbemuseum), Krefeld (Museum Haus Lange) and Stuttgart (Württembergische Kunstverein). He was represented at the Documenta "4" Exhibition, Kassel, in 1968. He became known for silkscreen prints, posters and sculptures which took the word LOVE as their theme. The brash directness of these works stemmed from their symmetrical arrangements of color and form.

 

Robert Indiana is, by his own admission, a painter of signs. His signs are more intrinsically signals than signs. Donald Goodall writes that "in the end Indiana's signals, all matter-of-fact and plainspoken at first, become elusive and suggestive of personal and public history... We look again, hard. And think about what the shapes have said." Indiana's "words... circles, squares and rectangles, and colors which begin in the sign-painter's kit" assume "unexpected brilliance or sensitivity, as these are put in their new universe." They possess "the authority of the irreducible. The most familiar images change character as we inspect this symbiosis of reality and remembered experiences, of the prosaic and speculative." Goodall suggests that Indiana's forms seem autobiographical, recalling "visual experiences as a child which are alive in his mind," experiences that the artist "equates with that optimistic illusion of hopeful generations, the American Dream." Nevertheless, the painting's "symbolic implication is not available to fast-transit comprehension. The sign says what it is. Well and good. But the inner-content of Indiana's signals, carefully planned and executed with artisan's skills, is sibylline." (The location of this quote is no longer online so the original source is unknown. Current online sources are quoted from this page on IAD.)

 

                 

Examples of Robert Indiana’s work

 

Your Assignment:

Create an original logo design using the initials of your name as a foundation.  Link, interlock and exaggerate the letters until they form an interesting abstract design.  You will then take this abstract design that represents your logo and express it three-dimensionally using cardboard.  You will be given a sheet of gray chip board that you must, cut, score, fold and construct into a fully three-dimensional, in-the-round sculpture of your logo. The completed piece should measure no higher than 2ft. (61 cm) in any direction.

 

The criteria for assessing the completed pieces will be:

· Design

· Construction

· Surface Embellishment

· Craftsmanship

· Effort

 (Note: Robert Indiana's images are copyrighted. Images will be removed if requested to do so)

 

National Standards:

 

1. Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes	2. Using knowledge of structures and functions	3. Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas	5. Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others
Students apply media, techniques, and processes with sufficient skill, confidence, and sensitivity that their intentions are carried out in their artworks	Students demonstrate the ability to form and defend judgments about the characteristics and structures to accomplish commercial, personal, communal, or other purposes of art	Students reflect on how artworks differ visually, spatially, temporally, and functionally, and describe how these are related to history and culture	Students identify intentions of those creating artworks, explore the implications of various purposes, and justify their analyses of purposes in particular works
Students conceive and create works of visual art that demonstrate an understanding of how the communication of their ideas relates to the media, techniques, and processes they use	Students evaluate the effectiveness of artworks in terms of organizational structures and functions	Students apply subjects, symbols, and ideas in their artworks and use the skills gained to solve problems in daily life	Students describe meanings of artworks by analyzing how specific works are created and how they relate to historical and cultural contexts
	Students create artworks that use organizational principles and functions to solve specific visual arts problems		Students reflect analytically on various interpretations as a means for understanding and evaluating works of visual art

 

Middle School Adaptation - Letter Design Personal Identity - or Meaning of Word

 

Materials:

Newsprint, corrugated cardboard, Masking Tape, Styrofoam cups, Aluminum foil, Newspapers, Brown paper toweling end rolls (or any solid color FREE paper), Wheat Paste, Acrylic Paint (house paint base coats optional), Brushes

Shown: "Words beginning with the letter... " - from Linda Hoffelt, Mickelson Middle School, Brookings, South Dakota

 

Preparation:

Cut a lot of cardboard strips (or chipboard) ahead of time on the paper cutter the right height for the sides. Make sure you cut them so they will bend easily around curves (cut across the corrugated rides rather than the length). Cut cardboard rectangles from Cardboard (two for each student - W and M letters may need to be wider). Students plan letter on newsprint. Foam core or Mat board could be used for letters and chip board for thickness.

Procedures:
Students do the first letter of their name (OR they could work in groups to spell a word).

Each student makes large letter (around 12 x 18 (30.5 x 46 cm) - or larger) - cut two pieces of corrugated cardboard for front and back side. Put small foam cups between the two layers for spacers. Then tape cardboard strips all around the outer edge (about 4 inches wide - whatever the height of the cups). Cover the surface with one layer of foil and secure with masking tape (this will prevent cardboard from warping). Then at least two layers of Paper Mache. One layer of newspaper - at least one layer of solid color (I used brown paper toweling end rolls the custodian saved for me).

When dry -  paint with Acrylic Paint (latex house paints work well for base coats). If using letter of name. Paint the letter to show meaning of name and personal identity images/symbols (a different sort of self portrait). Alternate idea would be to collage the letters. You could have the kids make one large letter... then paint/collage the letter to show meaning of word... include the word as part of the design on the big letter.

Here is a sample lesson plan:
http://www.rcs.k12.va.us/art/lessons/richards02.htm