October 25, 2010

By: Elizabeth R. from South Saint Paul, MN
Comments: 20

Posted By: Elizabeth Roszak
On: 1/8/2008 4:49:50 PM

Has anyone ever done a lesson where the students design pop (soda to the rest of the nation) can labels? I am going to be doing one with my 4th graders in art class. I am looking for resources that are student friendly for graphic design. Any recommendations for books, videos, web sites, etc.? My other question is...can we recycle our pop cans after we have glued paper labels to them? or would we need to take off the labels?

Posted By: Don Domes
On: 1/13/2008 8:29:39 AM

I would suggest having them analyze 10 different pop cans and make a list of information that is common to every can (UPC code, name, brand, deposit amount, etc.) so they learn from example key information the customer is given. This is also a great lesson to talk about how color sometimes is associated with taste. You can do a survey with colors and ask students to write the taste they expect as you display a color. The results of the survey will be interesting to the students and will help them understand some about market surveys. I hope you are having a great year! Hi from Oregon - Don Domes

Posted By: Carolyn Drake
On: 1/14/2008 11:17:51 AM

I know I received an assignment for designing a wine label in college; there may be lessons written about such a project that could easily apply. I know the aluminum can is iconic and a gorgeous canvas, but the nutritionist buried somewhere in me wonders if such an assignment could be applied instead to some sort of product that encourages healthier eating practices, such as water (although I know this introduces other issues) or juice. Also, looking at how "natural" products are packaged to distinguish them from other products could be fruitful (pardon the pun).

Posted By: Elizabeth Roszak
On: 1/15/2008 4:26:49 PM

Thanks for the great ideas! Don, you have just solved my problem of how to introduce this lesson. The more I think about this lesson the more invovled it is getting but I think it will be worth the time. The reason I am using pop is because this lesson is part of the "bigger picture" at my school(which is an IB PYP school) and the fourth graders are talking about media and persuasion. We peruse lots of different soda pop websites and discuss what the websites are trying to sell. Are they selling us a lifestyle, an image, or just a product? Why do we want to drink that beverage instead of a different one? oooooh, the more I think about this unit, the more excited I get. I still wonder what to do with the pop cans after the unit is done?

Posted By: Carolyn Drake
On: 1/18/2008 10:58:31 AM

You could mount them as a grid a la Warhol inside a very large shadow box and hang them in your classroom -- "pop" art?

Posted By: Don Domes
On: 2/11/2008 3:19:26 AM

Elizabeth, This sounds really exciting, I hope you post about how the lesson turns out! I am having students actually design other 90% exhibits like the ones we saw last summer. A couple of students have created working water pumps from standard plumbing parts! Have you seen the coke and mentos U-Tube videos? There are lot of other uses for soda pop besides drinking it!! Don Domes - Hillsboro High School - Oregon

Posted By: Centennial Middle School
On: 2/12/2009 7:38:22 AM

Have you tried to google pop can designs? I'm sure there are a lot of ideas that would come up.

Posted By: Stephen Brink
On: 2/12/2009 12:10:04 PM

I like this project idea. I try to do a little with advertising with my students. We talk about how things are sold. We discuss why Mt. Dew ads look the way they do and whey they never even mention what the citrus flavor tastes like. I think you could have several great parts to this. 1 Advertising 2 Product design 3 Nutrition 4 Recycling 5 ...and of course Pop Art ...artist of the week...Warhol The kids will love it.

Posted By: Centennial Middle School
On: 2/18/2009 10:21:36 AM

Our Language Art's curriculum also inlcudes a unit on writing for advertising. I think it is a great interdisciplinary unit to have the kids write for a product of their choosing in language arts and then design the product in art.

Posted By: Curt Uebelhor
On: 11/26/2009 11:27:09 PM

There were probably several soda bottlers in your area back in the "old days". We have about a dozen in a 50 mile radius and there were some cool designs back in the 30's , 40's and 50's. Checkout your local museum and consult some senior citizen about their pop memories and perhaps you can do a compare/contrast of old/new pop logos