10th Grade — Career Connections: Meet a Working Designer

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

If you could ask a professional designer one question about their job, what would it be?

🎯 Today's Big Question

What does a real working designer's day-to-day job actually look like?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Identify at least 3 tasks a working designer does in a typical week.
Research one design career of personal interest and connect it to a skill learned this semester.
Present findings to the class in a short share-out.

🧰 What You'll Need

Computer with internet access
A case study, interview, or video of a working designer (teacher-provided)

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Meeting a Working Designer

Do Now (5 min, above).
Mini-lesson (10 min): a quick review of design career paths from Grade 9.
Watch/read (10 min): a case study or interview with a working designer.
Guided discussion (15 min): what skills from this class connect to that career? Notes (5 min).

Day 2: Research & Share

Do Now (5 min).
Independent research (30 min): research one design career of personal interest, connecting it to a skill learned this semester.
Share/present (10 min): a short share-out to the class.

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Design Career Path: A specific job or specialization within the broader design field (e.g. UX designer, production artist, art director).

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Research notes + share-out checked for a specific, real connection between the career and a skill from this semester.

Exit Ticket: Name one skill from this class that would transfer directly to the career you researched.

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📤 How You Submit This — For Credit

How you submit today's work depends on what kind of work it was. Physical/paper work (most of this semester so far): photograph it with a classroom camera, upload the photo from its SD card onto a computer, and save it into your portfolio -- that upload is your submission, and the physical piece itself is yours to keep, the same as in Grade 9 (your notebook is the one thing with a home base in the room, and even that's your call to bring home when you want it). Digital work (once you're producing files in Photoshop, second semester on): no camera needed -- instead, EXPORT the file. Export your finished project as a JPG, as a PNG, AND save a copy as a PSD (all three), then upload all three into your portfolio. Either way: the portfolio upload, with a description, is what actually counts as turning the assignment in for credit.

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week, add your best finished or in-progress piece to your portfolio (the Google Drive folder you started in Grade 9, becoming your Google Sites portfolio in Lesson 10) with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what tool/skill it used, and one thing you learned. Keep it current -- don't save it all for the portfolio-website lesson.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Career Connections: Meet a Working Designer.” This project asked: “What does a real working designer's day-to-day job actually look like?” I used Design Career Path by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🔗 Want to Learn More?

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics -- Graphic Designers

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same informational-interview method a Business or Advisory class career unit assigns.

Career Connection: Take this straight to the Careers hub — compare what a real designer tells you against what the wage data and requirements actually say.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Write up the interview as a short published profile piece — real content, portfolio-ready, and useful for next year's class too. Start here: record the interview (audio, with permission) or take detailed notes during it, since a profile written from memory loses the specific quotes that make it feel real.
Design a "meet the designer" poster or slide summarizing the interview, presentable at a career fair. Start here: pick the single most quotable or surprising thing they said and build the poster's headline around that one line, not a generic bio summary.