Creativity took center stage in PLCS Summer School on June 12 as students channeled their inner product designers during the latest art enrichment session led by PLCS art teachers Kurt Swanson and Gail Sherrell. The project invited students to invent their own original snack — then design the packaging to go along with it.

From pizza bites and ranch chips to salty crackers, pickle seeds, and purple pops, the snack concepts students dreamed up were as varied and inventive as the students themselves. Once a snack idea was established, each student turned their attention to designing a custom box, incorporating their snack's branding, colors, and personality into a fully realized package concept.

The functional design element set this project apart: rather than producing a flat illustration, students created boxes that can actually be folded into a three-dimensional snack package — similar in structure to a cereal or snack box found on grocery store shelves. The hands-on engineering component introduced students to concepts of layout, symmetry, and spatial reasoning alongside the more traditional art skills of illustration and color use.

Projects like this reflect PLCS's commitment to enrichment programming that goes beyond the basics, giving summer school students opportunities to engage their creativity and problem-solving skills alongside core academic content. By connecting visual art to real-world product design, Swanson and Sherrell gave students a glimpse into the creative industries while fostering pride in their own original ideas.