Year 8 Product Design 

Cathie Cowcher 

Year 

8 Product Design – Class Teacher

Head of Learning – Visual Arts, Design and Technology 

The Year 8 Product Design classes were given a Design Challenge PowerPoint (8 slides) – to guide them through a process and steps; to plan, design and make their own miniature model of a unique chair design, inspired by iconic and unusual chairs over several decades of design eras and movements. 

The PowerPoint included a brief history of iconic chairs: Bauhaus: Gerrit Rietvelt - Red Blue Chair, Eames and Arne Jacobson, You Tube video links (30 Most Unusual Chair Designs Ever) an interactive quiz, clear instructions and a list of materials they could easily source and use at home.  

“Be purposeful, creative, have some fun and time away from your screen”  - this was the teacher recommendation on the last slide of the PPT.  

The students started their task by looking through the PowerPoint and doing a research task, gathering two examples of iconic and/or unusual chairs and briefly explaining what they liked about each example. Using their research and the list of suggested materials (or a digital design program) the students designed and made their chairs. When completed they uploaded a photo of their chair in Teams – Class Assignments. I made a PowerPoint of their chairs designs, giving each chair a name and a descriptive comment. 

As I went through this PowerPoint with my class 8B, I described each chair; what I thought or knew the materials to be, art/design elements used and how each design had been constructed, describing the creative, thoughtful and resourceful approach each student had taken, with the materials they had at home and made mention, that I felt each chair reflected the student designer/makers attributes. 

The miniature chair designs are truly beautiful, clever, quirky, exquisite, unique and delicate. The ingenuity of the student work is to be highly commended. Seeing their chairs made me smile. Thank you 8B!

Click on the images below to enlarge.