Discussargumentor

Here is another Literyacyhead design I am working on. The idea is that this is a Venn Diagram of a discussion and an argument. The kids would put characteristics of discussions in the soft guys head, argument characteristic in the strong / block head, and characteristics of both in the body. This was a fun drawing project and I think it is one of the coolest Venn Diagrams I have ever seen. Instructions will be added later.

Visual Vocabulary

Here is some more work I did for Literacyhead.com recently. As usually these were done super fast. I enjoy doing these little studies because they get me thinking differently about visual communication.

These are all intended for web viewing and are pencil sketches with digital texture / color.
All images ©2012 Literacyhead, LLC.

Literacy Head: Comparison 2 (Somehing Different)

Here is a couple samples from the most recent Literacyhead issue. They are in the "Tools-You- Can-Use" section and are a continuation of the Comparison tools (or Venns). This time around I used burlap and fabric as inspiration. Actually Mollie, my wife, has been making art in this style recently and I sampled her style for this series. Below are my favorite finished pieces.

Literacy Head: Comparison

The newest addition to Literacyhead.com is a lesson on comparing. We decided to make Venn Diagrams so kids could find similarities and difference between objects; mostly animals. Pictured below are pages where kids could compare a T-Rex and a Dragon, a Frog and a Toad, a Dolphin and a Shark, & a Pizza and a Pie. I had to abstract the figures a little, in most cases, to make the Venn's more usable (see example of Shark and Dolphin for most obvious stretch. Overall I am pretty happy with the way they turned out.





I have an exciting illustration project that is coming up that I will show you soon. The entire project is due by October 1st, so wish me luck in it's timely, stress free, completion.

Recent Literacyhead Piece

This is my favorite tool, out of six, I created for the current issue of Literacyhead. The issue is about testing but this Tool could be used for any topic. I wanted to put a twist on the idea of feelings by showing animals that have unusual ways of feeling their way around.


This is another tool for the Test issue that I could relate to. I experienced all these feelings at different times and for different tests throughout my time as a student. I tried to channel my experience of the feelings into the facial expressions.

On another note here is a really cool musical tool/toy I found on the web today. It is a web-page that is interesting to fool around with. Have fun.

APPsolutely inGENIOUS!

Anyone who follows this blog probably remembers that I do work for an online magazine called Literacyhead. Last week I was contacted and asked to create 6 logos/identities in 24 hours; and yes, my jaw dropped with a deadline like that. It turned I actually had a weekend to complete the project for an education competition but that is still not a lot of time.

The identities were for a Suite of APPs called APPsolutely inGENIOUS! Each App uses art in different ways to teach story comprehension. The mix of Literacyhead being good about letting me be creative and clear communication, about the project, made these identities a success.


Art Starts uses art that relates to a particular story to help kids understand the story.



The Build App asks the readers to build a building, house, or room based on their level of comprehension of the story.


This one uses art to make analogies to help with reading comprehension.



Picture Problems uses Math to help with the comprehension of stories. Don't ask me how this works, I am terrible at math.



This App uses the different substance of cooked egg textures to demonstrate levels comprehension: Hard-boiled (understand clearly), Fried (kind of understand), and Scrambled (don't understand).

IF: Burning

This is for a web magazine I am working for called "Literacyhead." This worksheet was created as elude to the game "Hot and Cold" that kids play. The farther your guess is, from being the correct, the colder you are, and as you get close, with your guess, you start burning up. At least that is how I used to play the game.

According to Charlie: "Less is More."

Here is the latest installment of my comic strip for Litteracyhead.com . The issue with this comic should be live next week. I also did two tools for this same issue. Let me know what you think.

According To Charlie

Recently was asked to create a comic strip for a children's literacy website called Literacyhead.com. I have been doing some graphic design work for them for a couple months and I am happy to be working on this by weekly strip. Please stop by literacyhead and see what they are doing over there.

The Comic Strip is about the adventures of Charlie the Chameleon who always seems be misunderstanding his friends. The first installation introduces his best friend Henrietta the Hedgehog. Let me know what you think.