The purpose of this site is to  preserve and display specimens of American packaging from the 20th Century.  It has hundreds of articles and is a wealth of information for graphic design and social history students.  A great deal of information can be taken from the numerous 2D and 3D models.  Totally quirky and totally useless to many of most of the time but definitely worth a stop off for the creatively challenged teacher or student. 

This could easily be integrated into an English or social studies lesson to discuss key items from different eras.

Visit the American Package Museum here.

The Life of Van Gogh: An interactive Timeline

This ThinkQuest site features the life and work of Van Gogh, focusing on the time he lived in Etten. You can browse through the galleries to see his work and read about his life. You can also take an online art course to learn his unique style.  This is a must visit for anyone studying art or history.  Check it out here.

Online Art history at Smarthistory

Smarthistory is an excellent way to learn about famous painters and pieces of artwork from around the world throughout the history of time.  It contains detailed video commentaries of various aspects of a piece of work and has plenty of opportunity for the audience to add their own thoughts and ideas too.

Smarthistory features images of notable works of art. Videos lessons, VoiceThread lessons, and audio lessons about eras and themes in art history. Students can browse all of the resources of Smarthistory by artist name, style of work, theme, or time period.

Definitely  great option for high school and tertiary students who want a detailed critique of their favourite piece of work.

Logo Design 101 for Students

What is it? Symbols and Logos are a major part of our lives, industry and culture.  The Logo Design Toolbox has over 60 great examples of classic logos and discussion points for what makes them so effective.  There are also guides and tutorials for budding graphic designers on how to create your own logo that will really stand out from the crowd.

How can I use this in the classroom? This would be a great resource to use with teenagers to discuss why image and branding is so important from both a marketing and cultural angle as well as from a design perspective to discuss the effectiveness of colour, text and imagery coming together to create a clean design that really reflects the product or person it stands for.  As I mentioned also there are some great step by step video tutorials which recreate some famous logos for Photoshop users. 

Create your online Picasso

mrpicassohead is a fun and simple to use website that allows you to create your own picasso style pictures using many of his trademarks styles and brushstrokes.  This would be a great activity for Art students to try if they are looking at different styles of famous painters.  Love or hate his work Picasso was a unique individual with a fresh new style and Mrpicassohead lets you see and experiment with the elements of picasso's work that made him so famous.

If art is your thing you might also like to check out a great Leonardo da Vinci site also.