SchoolArts - November 2010

DESIGN THINkING

Humor
in Design
Education

Design education has an advantage for introducing humor into our classes because many humorous images, objects, places, and experiences are created by designers. Caricaturists, cartoonists, and animators are designers who specialize in humor, but even industrial designers and architects sometimes introduce subtle humor into their designs. Playfulness is a key characteristic of a designer’s work. Marty Rayala

Visual Humor

Designers create a special type of humor known as visual humor that doesn’t rely on words to make us smile. Students need to be made aware of examples of visual humor in design because we are so accustomed to thinking of humor as only linguistically based. We think, for example, that movies are based mainly on scripts, but many animated films are created by story artists rather than scriptwriters. Story art is related to, but distinct from, storyboard art in that a story artist is not necessarily translating a script into images, but is actually creating a story through pictures.

It helps to have a sense of humor when designing marketable items.

Challenges of Visual Humor
One challenge with visual humor is
that many carica-
tures, cartoons,
and animated
movies rely
on stereotypes
because they are
easily recognized
and quickly understood. Stereotypes
used in visual humor can sometimes
be demeaning to others, so it is impor-
tant to help students create visual
humor that doesn’t offend or belittle
others. Most caricatures of President
Obama, for example, will feature
his big ears, but this is done without
intending to be hurtful, mean, or dis-
respectful.

Learning about caricature, editorial cartoons, and animation provides opportunities to explore issues of ethics, taste, values, and censorship.

Designers create a special
type of humor known as
visual humor that doesn’t rely
on words to make us smile.

Using Visual Humor Have your students look for examples of visual humor in graphic design, product design, architecture, fashion, and other design fields and challenge them to create a designed image, object, place, or experience that contains humor.