From September 2012, Graphic Products will become the latest addition to the portfolio of D&T subjects offered at GCSE, alongside Resistant Materials and Electronic Products. All three options will allow students equal access to the Product Design A’ Level course offered at Trent.

Students who opt to take the Graphic Products course will be able to tailor their work to suit their own design interests, such as: fashion, architecture, graphic design, interior design, advertising, computer game design or film/theatre set design, to name just a few. 

Graphic Products will offer students the opportunity to further develop their creativity, improve their drawing and presentation skills, and explore concepts through a range of outputs including; virtual media, textiles, two dimensional print, three dimensional packaging and display material, and web-based products. 

The Graphic Products course will be delivered predominantly through practical activity. Due to the nature of the skills being developed, this will involve a large number of small, exciting projects with a rapidly-achievable physical outcome including:  

Paper architecture

Adobe Illustrator workshops

Typography

Branding and corporate identity

Kinetic studies

Drawing and presentation skills

Point-of-sale and packaging

Engineering drawing

Magazine cover design

Adobe Photoshop workshops

Applying graphics to textiles

Industrial printing methods

Web and virtual media analysis and design 

Assessment of the GCSE Graphic Products course will be based on 40% theory exam and 60% controlled assessment (through a design and make task completed in year 11), allowing students to achieve a high grade through demonstration of the designing skills that they have developed throughout the course.