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MOONSHOT ACADEMY

MOONSHOT ACADEMY

Xuzheng Guo

Design Teacher, Head of the Design Discipline at D.R.E.A.M Department, Graphic Designer and Planner

He graduated from the Communication University of China, majoring in editing and publishing. He has worked in well-known technology companies and magazines and operated his studio. Now he is responsible for the construction, development, and teaching of design courses of MSA, and he is also the initiator and instructor of MDL (a Student Design Studio of MSA).

He is responsible for developing and teaching the overall course design of design courses and project-based teaching, supporting the project with liberal arts as the core, using design thinking to stimulate and promote learners' potential to care for society and actively pay attention to solving social practical problems, establishing projects with social value, and forming the ability to implement projects into products.

With his humanities background and extensive marketing experience, he can provide more perspectives on projects from different dimensions. He believes that design is not just technology, the essence of design is to understand people and communicate with people, and design is a method, not an end. He is interested in Research on how to use design thinking to solve problems in real life, and how to achieve "Fulfilled Individuals" and "Active, Compassionate Citizens" through design.

Curriculums2

DREM1001: Computer & Design Beginner

This course is intended for all G9/10 learners and is the beginning of all design courses. The course will focus on developing the most basic information literacy, design skills, and presentation skills, as well as the ability to master the most basic computer operations and develop good computer operating habits. The course content aims to guide learners to recognize life and society from the perspective of design, and to perceive and understand the existence of design in life and its significance through observation, perception, and experience of a wide range of design works in daily life. They will gain a preliminary understanding of the characteristics, laws, and aesthetic features of design, comprehend the basic language and features of design, and be able to try to use the basic elements of design, such as words, shapes, images, colors, etc. to solve practical problems in life, from which they can grasp the laws of design and beginner design skills and experience design thinking. Course tasks include teaching slide design and presentation, video editing, etc.

Priority will be given to incoming G9 learners. Learners who have previously taken Art & Design Beginner are not required to take this course.

DESI4002: Advanced Graphic Design

This course is an advanced graphic design course, only aimed at learners with a certain design foundation before (achieved an A - or above in the DESI3001 course or entered the course through portfolio and interview).

Graphic design is the foundation of all design disciplines and the base of the design pyramid. No matter which art and design direction you want to pursue or enter in the future, you must have a solid foundation in graphic design. Through this course, you will further lay a solid professional foundation and deepen your understanding and research by focusing on specific practical, creative projects. Today's graphic design is no longer a single professional discipline that works in isolation but an open, permeable, and cohesive discipline. It is the most powerful tool for exploration, research, and innovation. It is a channel that transcends the boundaries of different disciplines.

Projects5

Via

"Where is your hometown?" Is it the address on the Household Register, or the place of birth, permanent residence, or the place of origin. Hometown is not defined in black and white compared to the Chinese household registration system, it is too vague for us. People will pass through small and large corners in their life, leaving their own traces. Some traces will disappear with the footsteps of the way, some traces will be burned in the heart for life. After searching, there is always a place that belongs to one's hometown, the hometown of the soul. To me it is home, a place where people are loved. The Way is a series of works, including an art film and an art book. It revolves around "I" and discusses the meaning of the existence of hometown in such a society with a complex structure of Household registration system.

Lost & Found: Leaving our campus memories in 99 lost items

Disciplines/Subjects: Graphic Design Key Themes: Creative Design, Exhibition Design These are 99 lost items that were left behind at 129 Nangao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, a place once called Moonshot Academy(MSA). The school was forced to move out due to the Covid-19. Most of the campus is now empty, but there are still a lot of items that no one packed or were just too hard to move, so they were left there forever. We chose 99 of these lost items, the largest being graffiti on a wall and the smallest being a marble on a bookshelf. No matter how big or small, each item was a testimony to our real life there. Later, we launched a special “Lost & Found” campaign: we collected all the stories of people with these 99 lost objects, and as long as you have a story with one of them, you can be one of the “adopters” of it. After the event, we designed a set of postcards with all the “adopters” and stories collected at the exhibition. We used four different styles of fonts to form the main visual of “Lost & Found”, as if the 99 different items were piled up together, twisted and turned, seemingly unappreciated and about to be abandoned. The 99 items have also been individually keyed out of the photographs they were originally in and filled in with gray squares that represent “transparent, no content” in the design software to indicate that they are all lost. When you hold each card up to the light, you can retrieve the lost objects and stories, and we hope to convey the idea that although most of these objects are indeed lost, as long as we can find memories of them, their appearance will always be there.

Moonshot Academy High School Commencement 2024

Disciplines/Subjects: Graphic Design Key Themes: Graduation Ceremony, Branding Design, Packaging Design, Book Design Graduation is one of the most important events in a school, and we created a full set of branded visual identities for the ceremony. The main visual design centered around the “Orange Ladder”, an element derived from Moonshot Academy(MSA)'s landmark, the Little Theater, which is the most familiar symbol to every MSA learner. We abstracted the theater as a three-step ladder, echoing the graduation ceremony theme of “3, 2, 1”. We simulated the projection of the light on the stairs from a vertically downward perspective and summarized it as a minimalist graphic with only orange and black. The orange steps remain unchanged, while the shadows cycle through time, from no shadow at all to a narrow projection, symbolizing the graduation of each student from the MSA, leaving behind a trail of shadows, echoing the time of the graduation ceremony, the Summer Solstice. Utilizing 3D printing technology, we pasted the physical ladder onto part of the material to create a realistic projection through natural light, breaking the boundaries between static and dynamic, two-dimensional and three-dimensional.

Family Memoirs: Recording the individual stories of ordinary families in the big time

Disciplines/Subjects: History, Chinese, Media, Design Key Themes: Nonfiction Writing, Modern Chinese History, Microhistory “What can a small individual or a small family tell us? How much can it aid our understanding of Chinese history? We believe that the experiences of ordinary people can reflect the changes of an entire era, and we can genuinely feel the turning points of significant times through the vivid, detailed small histories. Without a micro perspective, our history would be unbalanced and incomplete.”—History does not float in the air; it is all around us, in the daily meals and routines of every family. Each family is a book, and if we can salvage and collect these memories, they too can be the magnificent voice of the times. In this project, learners explore modern Chinese history by tracing family stories and ultimately complete a “family memoir.” The project integrates multiple disciplines such as history, language arts, media, and design, aiming to document the individual stories of ordinary families against the backdrop of significant historical periods.

Finding the Right Location with GIS

Discipline/ Subject：GIS, Design Key Themes: GIS Campus Map, Sign Design This was initially a "boarding project" course, where the teacher designed the research questions, project outcomes, and all the acceptance criteria in advance. However, the teacher, Mora, found this approach uninteresting. So, after analyzing examples of how GIS can impact everyday life, she would always ask the learners, "Do you have any issues you want to vent about, or projects you'd like to tackle, or problems you think can be solved using geographical thinking? Let's work on them together. If not, you can work on the project I've prepared. Your choice." In the fall semester of the 2024-2025 school year, a group of 9th-grade freshmen who wanted to create their projects found an area of interest: modifying the school's map and wayfinding system (landmarks and signage). As freshmen, they often found themselves lost on campus, unable to navigate properly. After some complaints in class, they decided to tackle the school's map and wayfinding system. Mora suggested they consult other members of the community to determine if this was indeed a real issue. They interviewed students, teachers, school administrators, and parents, and distributed surveys to all students, teachers, and parents. "Have you ever had difficulty finding a classroom on campus?" In the 175 valid surveys, 90% answered "Yes." "What do you think is the biggest problem with the school's map, landmarks, and signage system?" Missing or incorrect information on the map; the inner circle signage system provides no information. Based on the survey and interview results, they corrected errors in the school's map, added a more user-friendly "current location" feature, and focused on improving the inner circle wayfinding system. They thought this would solve the problem, but as the project progressed, an obstacle appeared: the school's classroom numbering was chaotic and irregular. To quickly locate classrooms, the room numbers needed to be rearranged. Without this, adding more maps and signage would still result in people getting lost. Reordering the room numbers for the entire school was far beyond their capability.