10th Grade — Creating Vectors & Adding Pizzazz in Photoshop

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

Look at a logo you use every day (a brand icon on your phone, for example). Do you think it's a vector or a raster image? Why?

🎯 Today's Big Question

How do vector shapes differ from raster images, and how can filters and layer styles add polish to a design?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Use the Pen tool to create a basic custom vector shape.
Explain when a designer would choose a vector shape over a raster image.
Apply at least one filter and one layer style to enhance a design element.

🧰 What You'll Need

Computer with Photoshop
Pen tool practice worksheet/template

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: The Pen Tool

Do Now (5 min): discussion revisiting the vector vs. raster vocabulary from Unit 2 last semester.
Mini-lesson/demo (15 min): demonstrate the Pen tool step by step, practicing straight and curved paths.
Guided practice (20 min): trace a simple provided shape using the Pen tool.
Save progress (5 min).

Day 2: Filters & Layer Styles

Do Now (5 min): name one filter or effect you've seen used in a design before.
Mini-lesson/demo (10 min): filters vs. layer styles, destructive vs. non-destructive.
Independent practice (25 min): apply one filter and one layer style to a design element from an earlier project (e.g. your pin or business card).
Share (5 min).

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Pen Tool: The primary tool for drawing precise, scalable vector paths and shapes.
Filter: An effect applied to an image or layer (blur, sharpen, stylize, etc.).
Layer Style: A reusable effect (drop shadow, glow, bevel) applied to a layer without altering its pixels.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Pen tool practice + filter/style example collected and checked for basic technique.

Exit Ticket: When would a designer choose to build something as a vector instead of using a photo (raster)?

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📤 How You Submit This — For Credit

How you submit today's work depends on what kind of work it was. Physical/paper work (most of this semester so far): photograph it with a classroom camera, upload the photo from its SD card onto a computer, and save it into your portfolio -- that upload is your submission, and the physical piece itself is yours to keep, the same as in Grade 9 (your notebook is the one thing with a home base in the room, and even that's your call to bring home when you want it). Digital work (once you're producing files in Photoshop, second semester on): no camera needed -- instead, EXPORT the file. Export your finished project as a JPG, as a PNG, AND save a copy as a PSD (all three), then upload all three into your portfolio. Either way: the portfolio upload, with a description, is what actually counts as turning the assignment in for credit.

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week, add your best finished or in-progress piece to your portfolio (the Google Drive folder you started in Grade 9, becoming your Google Sites portfolio in Lesson 10) with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what tool/skill it used, and one thing you learned. Keep it current -- don't save it all for the portfolio-website lesson.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Creating Vectors & Adding Pizzazz in Photoshop.” This project asked: “How do vector shapes differ from raster images, and how can filters and layer styles add polish to a design?” I used Pen Tool by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

💼 Resume Moment

You just finished something real: Producing multiple real client-style deliverables in Adobe Photoshop (a poster, pins, business cards, a masked/composited portrait, and vector graphics), using nondestructive layer masking, selection refinement, and Content-Aware retouching throughout. Pause for a few minutes and add a line to your resume about it, in your own words. Here are 2-3 example ways to phrase it -- use one as a starting point, don't copy it exactly:

Produced multiple client-style design deliverables in Adobe Photoshop, including print and promotional materials.
Used Adobe Photoshop to design and export finished graphics for multiple real-world formats (posters, business cards, pins).
Applied nondestructive layer masking and selection tools to composite multiple images into a single finished piece.
Used Content-Aware Fill and the Healing Brush to retouch and clean up photo-based artwork before final export.
Applied layers, selections, and vector tools in Adobe Photoshop across 5 original design projects.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 4: Creating and Modifying Visual Elements

🔗 Want to Learn More?

Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop -- Pen Tool Basics

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same precision-drawing logic Geometry uses for constructing exact shapes with tools.

Career Connection: Clean vector work is core to Digital Designer 2D asset creation and tested directly on the ACP exam.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Design a small set of matching vector icons (5-6) for a mock app idea, consistent in style and line weight. Start here: build one icon completely first, lock its stroke weight and artboard grid, then duplicate that same setup for the rest so all six stay consistent by construction, not by eye.
Illustrate a science diagram (a cell, a circuit) in clean vector style — more useful as real study material than a photo. Start here: keep a labeled reference diagram from your science textbook open next to your workspace the whole time — an inaccurate diagram isn't usable as real study material.