Graphic Products at KS4
The Design Technology Specification has been developed to allow students to access the knowledge and skills they need to design and make products in a rapidly developing technical world. This specification focusses on the core technical principles of design and realisation and introduces students to new and emerging technologies.
What is Graphics and why choose it?
This GCSE course enables creative and practical students to build on their Key Stage 3 knowledge, allowing them to achieve a GCSE Technology with a Graphics specialism. The Graphics specialism has been designed to encourage students to design and make products with creativity and originality, using a range of artistic, graphic and modelling techniques to generate quality 2D graphic designs and apply them to a 3D product or prototype. Students will be encouraged to take on the role of ‘the designer’ and work as part of a team or as an individual and by working through design problems become more aware of the designers’ responsibility to the environment, and be mindful of moral and social issues when designing products for potential users. Together this will help students to appreciate the impact designers have on our daily lives and help prepare students for the world of work.
Students will study:
• How to sketch and draw ideas using traditional technical drawing and illustration techniques.
• How to plan and present information and apply colour in a variety of ways.
• How to design and use lettering and images to create the right message or mood.
• How to develop design ideas through hand drawn or CAD generated images to suit a target audience. This could include scanning hand generated artwork making it commercially viable.
CAD programs used include Photoshop and Techsoft 2D Design. (CAD-CAM)
• How to make mock-ups and 3D prototypes using and understanding different modelling materials and techniques to help test and present ideas to a potential client.
• How printed products are designed and produced in industry from the setting of the Brief, Research and Specifications through to the Designing and Manufacture of graphic products.
• How the work of key designers and design styles influences or affects the design and our use of every day graphic products
Exam Information
The exam board is AQA.
In Year 10 skills and theory will be taught through a series of mini projects planned around the syllabus designed to give the students a range of experiences and to build up their knowledge and understanding. The Year 11 assessment task will be a culmination of research, analysis, designing and making skills learnt during Year 10.
In addition to the single exam paper worth 50% of the marks, students must undertake a “substantial design and make task” based on contexts supplied by the exam board. This is also worth 50% of the marks and is largely completed in lesson time and assessed by their teacher.
Students are encouraged to utilise a range of materials and model-making techniques to demonstrate their skills and knowledge fully in the completion of this task.
