a collaboratory: The Wal-Mart Class

Oh the Wal-Mart Class, welcomed by some and hated by others, a successful class at the end nonetheless.

To all students this class was called experimental packaging, little did they know when they got to their first class that they would be designing packaging for Wal-Mart. At the time this class was being planned a rumor was being spread that Wal-Mart was about to embrace design as Target does. (Haven't seen anything yet.) So with fact in mind, we decided to go full speed ahead, and experiment, challenge the students with trying to elevate the design of Wal-Mart house brands and make them relevant and appealing for the masses.

In the first class students were tasked with picking a product, researching, making mood boards and coming up with a couple different conceptual directions. Just like any other class. But their was a twist.

My very wise friend was in town from NY a couple of weeks back and as we discussed life and things going on, she shared with me some doings of her current creative director. As she put it, zero attachment, better result; was the name of the game. This idea consisted of doing the following: you have designer A and designer B, both designers are assigned a project, a different project and they research, think, envision and start designing the project. Then out of the blue, the CD decides that the best thing for these projects is to give designer A, designer's B project and vice-versa. A fresh look, a new approach, or you could call it just plain cruelty. I would agree with the former and because I do I decided it would be a great idea to implement in class.

So, class 2 came around, students were asked to put all the project names on little papers and they drew projects out of a hat, some were excited, some were pissed, but really when do we ever get to pick what we work on. This is just a little taste of reality, that's all. And on they went for the next 7 weeks.

At the end of the quarter students worked on projects that they would have never have chosen for themselves and they did great, some adapted and embraced the situation. Others went on to whine about having to design a Wal-Mart product, or loosing control of what they had chosen. Tough, life is full of surprises if we let them bog us down we don't grow. Embrace the unknown.

This are some samples from that class...

Special Kitty