A Design Project: Building Something Beautiful with Shapes and Fair Shares

Here is where this shows up in real life. Designers plan before building. A sketch costs a minute and saves an hour of undoing. This is worth learning because planning before building is a habit that pays for the rest of your life.

Watch for it today, and when you spot it, tell someone what you noticed and how you knew. Ask yourself where else the same idea might be hiding, then go and look.

Get your eyes and your fingers ready. Time to design. Plan something using shapes and fractions: a quilt square divided into fourths, a paper garden with symmetrical flowers, a tile pattern that repeats. Sketch your plan first, then build it.

Name the shapes you used and the fractions you made. Beauty and order belong together, because the God who made both is a God of order. Show your finished work to someone and explain it.

Here is what makes a design finished. Step back, look at the whole thing, and ask whether anything is uneven or unclear. A minute of looking often improves a project more than another hour of adding. You will use this idea again and again, so build it strong today.