My professional project strives to show a more meaningful and fun way to learn the alphabet. I would need to create a design that would not only make learning the alphabet fun for the children, but also appeal to the parents in order for them to want to buy the product. Originally my idea was based around using a list of exotic fruit and vegetables to represent each letter. This came about to target the yummy mummies out there who would want to buy this more unusual card set to teach their children the different foods of the world. It was soon apparent that it was difficult to find a list, which would both be exotic enough to be unique but not so exotic so it was too far-fetched for even the parents to understand.
After much contemplation I decided to take a different route. Nowadays teachers use a system called Jolly Phonics to teach primary school children. This is a thorough foundation for reading and writing; it teaches the letter sounds in an enjoyable, multisensory way and enables children to use them to read and write words. After researching this system, I found that the imagery used in the teaching materials was very dull and in my opinion wouldn’t appeal to children. This was mainly because of the lack of colour used and the style of the illustrations.
So from this I decided to redesign the look of the learning cards for home use, by altering the imagery and layout of the learning material. I figured if there was an existing system out there that already worked well, why digress from that? By redesigning the Jolly Phonics system, not only would I be able to teach children the alphabet in the most successful way known, but also I will be doing it to make it more enjoyable and interesting for them.
I went with a style, which was simple yet, bold, slightly abstract but still recognisable. I made sure that the layout would compliment everything on the page and ensured that the hierarchy was obvious to bring out the most important features. Text was included to anchor the meaning of the images and quite a lot of negative space was left so to make the cards were pleasing to the eye and not too intimidating.
On the back of the cards there is a page, which allows the child to practice writing the letters. First with faint outlines of the letters so tracing can be done then they are left to practice on their own. Jolly Phonics is taught in groups of letters depending on which letters are similar to each other. I assigned a colour to each of these groups so to make teaching and learning easier. Children relate to colour and their memory can be improved when they can put a colour to an object, or in this case, a letter.
In order to make the cards child proof, I laminated them to ensure that if they got dirty, they would be easy to clean. The plastic cover also allows for the child to use white board markers when practicing their writing and then rub it off for next time- thus the cards are reusable and long-lasting. For the packaging, I decided to go for something simple. A design that would be consistent with the colour system of the cards inside the box, but in a way that was attractive and not overpowered with information.
Overall I am very happy with my final product. It is a massive improvement from my previous ideas and shows great promise in potentially being something you would find in a store. I think my idea of using a colour system works well to bring all the learning materials together. Although, I think my greatest achievement in this project is the illustrations I created. These icons have a good balance of being informative as well as a consistent welcoming look to it; and I think children would enjoy learning the alphabet because of them. If I had more time I would design a leaflet to go with the cards and include suggestions for games that could be played while using the cards; maybe have encouraging words and advice for the parents when trying to teach their children. All in all I have enjoyed this project greatly.
