Key Stage 2 art and design · Great artists, architects and designers

KS2 great designers in history: a guide for parents

In Key Stage 2, children are taught about great artists, architects and designers in history. Designers plan the things people use every day, such as patterns, posters, maps, signs, furniture and pottery, and the aim is for pupils to understand how design has developed over time. The curriculum names no designer, so your child’s school chooses, and the lasting idea is that good design solves a problem and looks right at once.

Great designers in history, explained

As with artists and architects, the national curriculum says only that pupils should be taught about great designers in history. There is no list of names, so schools choose, often to match a history topic or a making project in the same term. A class designing a poster might look at a famous poster designer, while a class making printed patterns might look at textile designers. You may also see craft makers, such as potters and weavers, whose handmade work often sits somewhere between art and design.

The simplest way to explain the difference is that an artist often makes something to be looked at, while a designer makes something to be used, and has to make it look good as well. A chair, a map or a road sign must work first. Children learn the questions designers ask: who is it for, what problem does it solve, what is it made of, and does it look right? They also learn that most designs go through many drafts, with sketches, models and changes, before the final version.

Schools might choose examples such as William Morris, who designed richly patterned wallpapers and fabrics based on plants and birds in the later nineteenth century, including his Strawberry Thief fabric of 1883. Others include Harry Beck, who in 1931 drew a new kind of diagram for the underground railway in London, first printed for passengers in 1933, and Margaret Calvert, who with Jock Kinneir designed road signs and lettering used across Britain from the late 1950s and 1960s. Clarice Cliff, who from the late 1920s designed brightly coloured pottery, is another. These are examples a school might pick, not a required list.

Design from the past looks the way it does for reasons, and that is the “historical and cultural development” part. Morris admired handmade work and disliked mass-produced goods. Beck simplified a map because passengers needed to know connections, not exact distances. Children are encouraged to ask when something was made, what technology existed, who it was for and what has changed. In class that often leads to pupils trying a technique themselves: repeating a pattern, redesigning a sign or sketching an improved version of a familiar object, and keeping the sketches in a sketchbook.

Words your child will hear

Designer: A person who plans how something will look and work before it is made.
Design brief: A short description of what a design must do and who it is for.
Function: What something is for, or the job it has to do.
Pattern: A design made by repeating shapes, lines or colours in an order.
Repeat: One unit of a pattern that is printed or drawn over and over to cover a surface.
Prototype: A first model of a design, made to test it and improve it.
Typeface: A style of lettering, such as thin and curly or thick and plain.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

Pupils should be taught about great artists, architects and designers in history
Aim: pupils know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: finding out why a design works

Your child is shown Harry Beck’s diagram of the London underground railway and asked, “Why is this a good design?” How might they answer?

Start with the problem. Earlier maps showed stations in their true positions on a street map. In the middle of the city the stations were squashed together and hard to read, while outer lines stretched far out. Passengers mostly want to know which line to take, where to change, and which stops come next.
Look at the choices the designer made. The lines are straight and run only across, up and down, or at a slant of 45 degrees. The stations are spaced fairly evenly, each line has its own colour, and the places where you can change line have a special mark.
Ask what was given up. Because the distances are not true, two stations that look far apart on the diagram may be a short walk, and the real shape of the city has disappeared. Beck decided that was worth it for a clearer journey.
Try the idea yourself. Draw a map of a route from home to school or the park using only straight lines and slants, with a mark for each stop and a different colour for each part. Show it to someone and see whether they can follow it.

A model answer: “Harry Beck’s underground diagram is a good design because it shows what passengers need and leaves out what they don’t. The lines are straight, the stations are evenly spaced, and each line has its own colour, so it is easy to plan a journey. It isn’t accurate for distance, but that doesn’t matter for finding the way by train.”

Common mistakes and how to help

“Designers just make things look pretty”

Children see the finished product, such as a patterned plate or a poster, and notice colour and shape first. The thinking that went into how it works isn’t visible.

What helps: Ask “what job does it do?” before “do you like it?”. A road sign has to be read at speed, a chair has to be sat on, and a map has to be followed. Good design satisfies both.

Thinking that design only began with computers

Children meet design mostly on screens and in modern products, so history can seem to have had none.

What helps: Show them designs by hand from the past: printed fabrics from the 1880s, pottery from the 1920s, maps drawn with pen and ruler. Ask how it was made without a computer.

Believing a famous design was right first time

A final design looks complete and confident, so it seems like it must have arrived that way. The earlier sketches, tests and rejected ideas are hidden.

What helps: Make your own drafts visible. Draw three different versions of a poster, a pattern or a sign, choose one, and say why. Explain that designers do this all the time.

Thinking the designer always makes the object as well

In small projects a child designs and makes everything alone, so they expect this of everyone.

What helps: Explain that many designers draw the design and others make it: weavers, printers, potters and factory workers. When your child researches a design, they can look for the names of the makers as well as the designer.

How to help at home

Be a design detective. Pick an everyday object such as a mug, a chair or a toothbrush. Ask who it was designed for, what problem it solves, what it is made from and what you would change.
Spot patterns and repeats. Look at wallpaper, curtains, a tea towel or a biscuit tin. Find the part that repeats and draw it. Then design your own repeat using shapes from leaves or flowers in the garden.
Redesign a sign or map. Make a simpler map of your street or a clearer sign for a room at home, such as “shoes here”. Test it on a family member and ask whether they understood it at once.
Try three drafts. Before making a card or poster, sketch three different layouts and pick one together. Talking about why you chose it is the same thinking professional designers do.
Print a pattern from household shapes. Dip the end of a cardboard tube, a piece of sponge or a screwed-up piece of card into washable paint and print a repeating pattern. Use a wipeable surface and an old shirt.

Builds on

Key Stage 1: Artists, craft makers and designers
Key Stage 1: Comparing artists’ work

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: Ancient and classical art
Key Stage 3: Medieval to Renaissance art
Key Stage 3: Baroque to Impressionism
Key Stage 3: Modern and contemporary art