A lemonade stand.
Because what says summer more than a child running a sidewalk lemonade stand?
And what a fun opportunity to share with children what it is like to work as a commercial artist, a career I am partial too as I started my adult life off as an art director in an advertising agency.
The hardest part for me was trying to figure out how to create a stand worthy of children investing a week's worth of work on without breaking the bank, but thankfully my husband, although a CA by trade, is not without his own creative talents and was able to create a simple, cost effective stand after sauntering up and down every single Home Depot aisle for almost two hours with me.
I'm a lucky girl.
I was duly impressed with his structure and when they were all built very excited to see the kids faces when they walked into the first day of camp.
Needless to say the campers were excited too when they first laid eyes on them.
On the first day I talked to the kids about branding and then focused in on how artist use color to identify a company. I asked them to tell me the colors of Starbucks, McDonalds, and a couple of other companies. Without missing a beat the campers shouted out the color combinations and quickly caught on how color plays an important role in creating a brand.
I then asked each of them to start thinking of their own color combinations to begin creating their own business brand. Then each camper got busy painting the lower section of their lemonade stand.
It takes a long time to paint a cardboard box. I was quite proud of each child during this process, they worked very hard! This was also the messiest part of the week and I cleaned paint off the floor for over an hour.
note to self, put down tarps
Painting the boxes took a good part of three hours on the first day of camp, but there was time to begin the wood board table top. I had a bowl of lemons on hand for reference and spoke to them about a birds' eye viewpoint. This was also a great opportunity to introduce composition. Afterwards I left it up to each camper to take the information I had presented and interpret it in their own unique way.
By the end of the first day of camp, each child had created a composition and sketched it onto their table tops to begin painting the next morning.
And what began to emerge? Logo identities! Dinosaurs, lemons with sunglasses, and graphic lemon slices along with each child's individual brand colors.
By the end of the second day, campers had finished painting their table tops, painted the top sign of their stand with a base coat and painted two coats of chalkboard paint on the front of their boxes so they could add specials and prices.
How exciting it was to see how different each stand had evolved from the same basic structure.
A blue color scheme and an original sketch on the table top of a lemon with a mustache evolved into a fish which evolved into a company name- LemoCODo lemonade. He even added some bubbles running up the wood!
A lemon with sunglasses began making an appearance and that checkered tablecloth under the napkins took the artist SO LONG to paint but it worked out great. Once I even tried to move the napkins as she was working out the pattern of the tablecloth even.
This artist had created her company mascot from the very beginning, a dinosaur, as part of her company name- DINOmite lemonade. She also made the decision to leave her tabletop natural, just painting a couple of lemons and a stack of napkins. But what was really exciting is how she began to think outside the box and added her dinosaur to the upper sign!
And the youngest artist, a recent kindergarten graduate, began to create this outdoor theme. How cute is the bird on the tabletop sampling some of the lemons and cookies? And I LOVE the little girl she painted on front of the box too. And it came as no surprise to see purple and pink playing a very big role in this young artist company colors.
I'm a firm believer in making projects open ended and then letting kids go off in their own direction, even when it is something in a million years I could not of anticipated. And so it was with this camper who from the very beginning was very enthusiastic with his "ROCKS AND BLOBS" business concept. He spent so much time mixing just the right purple, brown, and green for his company colors and was so proud of the camo pattern he created on his box. Listening to him telling me about the tabletop was fascinating, there are several different kinds of cookies along with samples of rocks and blobs but the cutest part is the change box he painted with $150.00 inside.
As I always say, dream big.
On the third day of camp, we focused on uniforms and logo design. I had originally ordered some aprons with pockets that I thought the kids could use to hold their money when selling lemonade. First they got stuck in customs and I wasn't certain they would even arrive in time for camp and then when they did arrive, I was personally disappointed in the quality. I had thought we would use dyes and resist on them but when I saw the material was uncertain it was hold so changed it to permanent markers.
If I was disappointed in the quality, I was more than pleased with how much the kids enjoyed creating their company aprons. This held their attention much longer than I had anticipated and the kids were really happy with them. This was a great opportunity to not only introduce logo design but also typography and it was fun watching each child create a typeface and logo for their stands.
Tag lines even began to evolve at this point, Dino-mite Lemonade now had a "squeeze the day" logo on the change pockets.
But because I was worried that the aprons would be less than appealing to the kids and that they might not arrive at all, I had created a Plan B.
Tye dye shirts.
What kid does not like to make tye dye shirts and just in case the aprons were a dud with the kids, I had decided to go ahead and do them even though the aprons arrived on time.
Each child kept in mind their company colors and created a t-shirt uniform to wear with their apron while running their stands.
I had bought fabric pens for the kids to draw their logos and company names on the shirts the next day when they were washed and dried, but they were so happy with them I figured they would want to wear them even when they weren't doing a lemonade stand and as a group we decided to leave them "as is".....which was pretty spectacular.
And finally I gave each camper a piece of watercolor paper, liquid watercolor and a black permanent pen to put their created logos and tag lines, if they had it, on the upper sign on the stands.
Then we were done for another day.
end of day three
Some pretty great stuff began to happen as children began to inspire each other. The youngest student was inspired by "Matilda's Lemonade" lemon slice logo and created her own version for "Cats Lemonade" adding both ears and whiskers.
How adorable is that?!
The outdoor theme continues on the apron pockets with a spider and slug making an appearance too.
We had a few minutes left in class still and I wanted to introduce some sort of printmaking project and so each child created lemon slice prints with the fresh lemons to be used the next day to create buntings.
Because it was the Canada Day long weekend right before camp started, this camp was only four days instead of five and so although the stands looked more than complete there were still a couple of more projects I had planned for the last day before we did a "soft opening" out front of the studio at the end of camp.
First the campers finished their buntings.
I was thrilled to watch them work together on how to keep the buntings from flipping backwards on their stands. I was planning on jumping in but they didn't need me and it was much better for them to problem solve together and figure out their own solutions.
Another unexpected "win" this project provided the children.
However the highlight of the morning was creating the company name tags because they only thing that gets kids more excited than tye dye in my experience is Shrinky Dinks.
Especially when it's time to watch them shrink in the oven. We did the pins in batches but everyone would stop what they were doing to come and watch the shrinking of the pins in the oven.
For those campers who finished these projects early, I gave them large pieces of paper to create road side signs to entice customers.
By this time it was close to the last hour of camp and I had made some homemade lemonade and gave each child a pitcher to add to their stands with some lemonade, lemon slices and ice.
Then we made our way to the front of the studio with our lemonade stands and set up shop for a "soft opening"
Any proceeds made were to be shared by the group.
Lord did they have fun with cries of 'lemonade' filling the neighborhood on a warm summer day. Wish my loud voice wasn't so prominent in this video as it seems to be "filling the air" more than I had anticipated in my own excitement of seeing all the kids final creations complete.
Cars of people smiled as they drove by and others stopped to get a glass. Then as the parents arrived, the picture taking began as each child excitedly and proudly shared their new business with their parents.
Needless to say it was a special camp and I have already received a couple of emails from families sharing with me the fun their children have had at home running lemonade sales. What more could I possibly ask for?
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