Giant iPhone
When I walked into my classroom for the first time in 2023, I noticed something immediately, the pull of the smartphone was constant, and fighting it felt like a losing battle. So instead of fighting it, I made it the lesson.
Fresh off completing my Google UX Design certificate, I had been deep in the world of icons, apps, and interfaces. I started thinking about what it would mean to take those flat digital objects and make them real, physical, sculptural, something you could walk up to and touch. I asked each student to choose their favorite app icon and build it as a sculpture. They were hooked.
Then we needed somewhere to put them. So we built a proportional iPhone — eight feet tall, recycled cardboard, standing in the middle of the classroom, and filled it with the icons my students had made by hand.
The same screens they couldn't put down became the raw material for some of the best work they'd ever made. That felt like the right answer.
