What exactly does a graphic designer do? Recently MSLK was joined by nine third- through fifth-graders looking to discover what it means to have a career in graphic design. Students at the Beginning with Children Foundation Senior Academy Program sign up for a field of study they are interested in each semester. As part of the BwCF program they  then visit a related professional office for a tour and presentation by a professional from that industry. MSLK was asked to host the children currently taking a course in Digital Art and discuss what goes into developing a design.

In order to capture the children’s attention we asked them to help us create a marketing campaign for an ice cream shop. We first presented mood boards with images of our ice cream shop and its products.

We then asked the kids to help us brainstorm names for the shop and led them through an abbreviated version of our naming process. I was very impressed at the clever and thoughtful names that the kids contributed. Plus they each raised their hand before submitting an idea! MSLK is never that civil when brainstorming…

After we had several possible names, we allowed everyone to vote for their top two name choices using MSLK’s standard elimination method. The name with the most dots wins, as you can see “Mr. & Mrs. Cream” and “S’Winter” were big contenders with S’Winter winning out by just one vote in the end.

We then asked the children to come up with an advertisement that would drive customers to the new S’Winter Ice Cream shop. Christel and Marc kindly showed the students a few of their ideas to get the ball rolling.

We then broken into groups with each MSLK staff member working with two children on their ad campaigns.

The students really rose to the challenge and created some clever ads. Here are the results:

A deliciously clever cherry cone by Alliyah. Note how the ice cream cone also represents the letter “i” in “delicious.” That’s an MSLK special.

This appears to be the New Year’s ball of ice cream by April, showing off that “Any season it’s always time for S’Winter” and some great ice cream.

Brianna’s world of ice cream mountains shows that it’s sometimes snowing and sometimes raining showers of sprinkles at S’Winter. Of course we offer “flavors for the summer and winter!”

Daniel’s techno-colored dream world showed us that even when it’s “Summer outside it’s always winter in S’Winter.” It looks like things are all swirling together under that rainbow.

In the middle of winter, all David can think about is summer. “Ice Cream for Summer!” he screams in a font that looks like a double dip.

Jassiem posed the question, “What’s Summer and Winter together? Summer + Winter = S’Winter!” of course. Notably, her hand gripping the cone reminds us of Lady Liberty’s torch.

Jibri shows off the dichotomy of Summer and Winter in S’Winter, highlighting that there are flavors for all of your personalities.

J’shun immediately began crafting this very edgy logo, note again how the “i” has been replaced by an ice cream cone. He’s added a hungry beast taking a first lick at what could be your cone and encouraging everyone to “Eat it!”

Shateek continues the swirl theme by showing us that S’Winter offers “Two swirls in every bite.”  Look at that art deco style cone with a giant “S” on top.

After all this hard work and talk about ice cream, we thought it would be fun to treat the kids to some ice cream cake. It just so happened to be our own Ryan Nussbaum’s birthday. Ah, nothing is more satisfying than a job you can eat at the end!