2025 is going to be a ”BANNER” year!!!!
As you walk through the hallways of the Midland School, you may notice several colorful and informative banners adorning the walls. You have the students in the Computer Skills career cluster to thank for these fine masterpieces.
The main job in this career cluster is to make banners. A banner is a large display typically used for advertising, promotion, or conveying information, featuring a message accompanied by relevant pictures. Banners are hung on bulletin boards and hallway walls throughout the school to advertise special events including school dances, student council theme days, monthly nutrition themes to promote good health, and even birthdays.
When a staff member wants a banner for a bulletin board or special event, they complete a banner order form, detailing the desired text and specifying the types of images to be included.
In Computer Skills, we prioritize customer satisfaction! Meeting the customer’s needs is key, and, as with any task, we emphasize the importance of carefully following the order form to ensure accuracy. The students learn to follow the order form to design the banner, doing their best to make it look attractive and easy to read.
A desktop publishing program called the PrintShop 23.1 is used to create banners. With practice, the students become proficient in using this program, learning how to follow the various steps in designing a banner… and there are many! Decisions about which font to use for the text as well as which images to use to embellish the banner must be made. Students also become proficient in resizing and repositioning the images to improve the overall appearance of the finished product. Banners are then saved, printed, and taped together.
It is very impressive to see the Computer Skills students as they create banners. Throughout the semester, they become increasingly capable of designing them on their own, and seeing their finished products displayed on the walls of the school fills the students with pride! Next time you see a banner hanging on the walls at Midland, you’ll be able to appreciate all the effort that went into creating it!