⏰ Do Now — Start Here
Look at the image posted on the board. Write down the first three words that come to mind.
🎯 Today's Big Question
- How do designers identify the purpose and audience of an image before they ever start designing?
📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To
- Define audience, audience purpose, audience reaction, target audience, demographics, and asset.
- Match a printed image to a client scenario and justify the match in writing.
- Explain why a designer should meet with a client before starting a project.
🧰 What You'll Need
- Printed magazine/ad images (teacher-provided, at least 6 varied examples)
- Scenario cards (printed)
- Purpose & Audience worksheet (paper)
- Product cards for the "create your own" activity (e.g. sneakers, phone case, cereal)
- Pencils
📋 Your Plan for Today
Day 1: Meeting the Vocabulary
- Do Now + share-out (5 min): every image has a purpose and an audience, even ones that seem random.
- Mini-lesson (12 min): introduce audience, target audience, demographics, audience purpose, audience reaction, and asset with real examples.
- Guided practice (8 min): as a class, match the first 2 scenario cards to the correct printed images and explain why.
- Independent/pair practice (15 min): match 3 more scenario cards on the worksheet, writing a 1-2 sentence justification for each.
- Quick share (5 min): 2-3 pairs share their trickiest match and how they decided.
Day 2: Applying It Like a Client
- Do Now (5 min): quick vocab check -- match 3 terms to their definitions from memory.
- Independent/pair practice (15 min): finish the remaining scenario cards on the worksheet.
- Create-your-own (12 min): given a random product card, write a 2-sentence target-audience profile and name 1 asset you'd use.
- Discussion (10 min): "Every client questions" -- what should you always ask a client before starting? (target audience, purpose, desired reaction).
- Exit ticket (3 min).
🖨️ Print Your Handout
Word, picture, and definition for today's vocabulary, plus a place to write and draw. Available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.
📚 Key Words
- Audience
- The general term for the people who will see or use a design.
- Target Audience
- The specific group of people (by age, interest, location, etc.) a design is created to reach.
- Demographics
- The measurable traits of a group of people -- age, gender, income, location -- used to describe an audience.
- Audience Purpose
- What the audience wants to get out of seeing the design, such as buying a product.
- Audience Reaction
- The first impression or feeling an audience gets from a design.
- Asset
- Any image, color, font, or other element used inside a design.
✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include
Worksheet is collected and checked against an answer key; partial credit for reasonable justifications even if the "official" match differs.
Exit Ticket: Pick one image from today and write 2 sentences: who is the target audience, and what reaction is the designer going for?
📊 Before You Leave
Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.
🎓 ACP Exam Prep
This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 1: Working in the Design Industry
🔗 Want to Learn More?
🚀 The Extra Mile
Cross-Class Connection: This is the same audience analysis English class teaches for persuasive writing — who you're writing for changes what you say.
Career Connection: Audience research is page one of the Advertising & Marketing and UI/UX career paths — neither field designs anything before knowing who it's for.
Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:
- Pick a real school club and define its actual target audience (grade level, interests) before designing anything for it — the real first step of a club promo project. Start here: write three plain sentences answering who they are, what they care about, and what would actually make them stop scrolling, before you open any design software.
- Write a one-page "audience brief" for a product you wish existed, the same document a real design studio would open a project with. Start here: answer the same four questions — age, interests, need, tone — for your invented product before you sketch a single layout.