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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 Course Background Originally titled "Finding the Right Location with GIS," this onboarding project was designed by Mora Jiang, who structured the research questions, project outcomes, and all the acceptance criteria in advance. The course has been offered at MSA for several years. After examples of how GIS can impact everyday life, Mora would always ask learners: "Do you have any problems you want to solve using geographic thinking? Let’s work on them together. If not, we’ll proceed with my prepared project. Your choice." Problem Identification In the Fall semester of 2024-2025, a group of 9th grader freshmen responded to Mora’s question by venting their frustrations about the school’s confusing layout: "The campus design is disorienting. — I often lose my sense of direction." "There aren’t enough maps or wall signs. Even when I find them, they’re sometimes incorrect." After discussion, they formulated their research question: Why do people in MSA community frequently get lost? Validation & Data Collection Mora challenged them: "Is it possible that only newcomers get lost? What evidence supports the claim that ‘people always get lost’?" She also pointed out that statements like "there aren’t enough maps" lacked data. Students conducted on-site investigations: Documented uneven distribution, obstruction, and inaccuracies in existing maps/signage. Deepening the Inquiry To address whether non-newcomers also struggled, these students designed a survey. Mora advised: "Interview community members first to confirm this is a genuine issue." Interviews with 31 students, teachers, staff, and parents revealed widespread navigation challenges. Key findings from 175 survey responses: 90% admitted struggling to locate rooms. Top issues: missing/incorrect map info and ineffective interior signage. Solution Development When there was sufficient evidence, the learners chose to start with the most popular problem they were capable of solving: dividing themselves into two groups, the map group and the wall sign group. The map group was responsible for correcting the errors in the school map and adding more user-friendly features such as "current location" and the shortest routes. While Wall Sign Team group needed to modify the inner-circle wayfinding system from a design perspective. This definitely required the help of a design teacher. Fortunately, not long after the students sent out their questionnaires, they received support from Design Teacher Guo Xuzheng. Guo Xuzheng not only fully supported the design of the wayfinding system, but also agreed that the final output of this boarding class could be used as the final assignment for the design course. The assignments of the two courses could be combined to reduce the students' burden and enable them to focus more on the project. At the same time, another design teacher, Kyson Zhang, got highly involved. He not only gave detailed suggestions on the students' inner-circle wayfinding system, but also participated in several rehearsals in person. Unexpected Challenge The students originally thought that making the map and redesigning the inner-circle wayfinding system would solve the problem. However, as the project progressed, a major obstacle stood in their way: the classroom numbers in the school were irregular. For example, the room after C102 was not C103, but E102. To quickly locate a room, they had to rearrange the door numbers; otherwise, no matter how many maps and wayfinding systems were placed, people would still get lost. Rearranging the numbers of all the rooms in the school was far beyond their capabilities. How could they drive this change? They had to approach the school leaders. But how could they get the school leaders to agree to such a major change? They carefully planned an on-site presentation and PK competition targeted at the founder of Moon School, the principals of the high school department of Moon School, the person in charge of the logistics department of Moon School, the person in charge of student affairs at Moon School, their grade leaders and coaches. Please watch the VCR.