Recently I attended my local high school’s career day as a presenter on the field of graphic design. I gave three, hour-long presentations. We talked about what graphic design is, what types of work one can do, places to work, types of schools to attend and we took a look at work my firm has completed. Then we got to the heart of it…the brainstorming. At ithree graphic design, we brainstorm new projects and before we brainstorm we get our creative juices flowing. So that’s what we did about half-way through my presentations. I divided the students into groups and before we talked about the design of three ads that appeared in a local paper, we got into our creative space. In order to make sure we were prepared to speak critically about the ads, the groups drew monsters. The process started with the first person drawing a monster body part, then passing the paper to the next person, where they would continue to build the monster based on what the last person drew. I alleviated some pre-drawing jitters by reminding the students that since monsters don’t really exist, there is no right or wrong way to draw one. By the end of each drawing session, the students had come alive, they were all smiling, talking amongst themselves, laughing at the monsters they were drawing and had awakened their creative minds. I can’t tell you quite what that was like for me…getting to see those kids engaged and willing to participate. All I can say is that it was really cool and on occasion, I still smile to myself. We ended up with some really out there monsters, some silly monsters and some scarey ones and I can’t resist sharing them here…maybe they’ll make you smile too. Thanks Basalt High School!