Designing Learning Tools for Curious Young Minds
Client : Chennai Photo Biennale - Prism
Created as part of Ashok Leyland’s RTE initiative and developed by Chennai Photo Biennale, Peer Ponder Play: Volume 2 was designed as a classroom toolkit for under-resourced schools across South India. The book introduced teachers to art-based activities that explore themes of environment, self, and society using everyday materials found in and around school spaces.
The design and visual development were handled by Studio Atom, where the project was seen through from concept to delivery — including the full visual system, illustrations, layout design, and project coordination.
The toolkit consisted of two parts:
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A teacher’s handbook featuring 30 activities, complete with grade wise division, instructions, discussion tips, and outcome visuals
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A set of student activity sheets, one for each exercise, designed in black and white for practical use in school printing setups
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Further this kit was designed in 2 languages. (English and Tamil)
Dual-language formatting
Designed in both Tamil and English, with mirrored layout systems to maintain consistency and readability across regional schools.
Collage-style illustrations
A new visual language was introduced to reflect the real-world, found-object nature of the activities — helping teachers visualize potential student outcomes.
Icon system
Developed a symbol set to help teachers quickly identify which age group, materials needed and more to quickly give a gist of each activity.
Print-friendly approach
To accommodate low-resource schools, the activity sheets were created in black and white, with ample white space for writing, drawing, and exploration — ensuring clarity even on basic printers.
Visual layout structure
A modular layout was used throughout the handbook and worksheets to balance instructional clarity with creative flexibility — easy for teachers to navigate without prior design or facilitation training.
Reflection sections
Each activity in the handbook and worksheet included a small space for teachers and students respectively to share their takeaways, reinforcing participation, voice, and scope for imp to the activity.
Visual consistency
The same design language was extended across the teacher handbook and activity sheets to create a cohesive classroom experience.
The outcome & Learnings
Designed specifically for teachers and students in low-resource contexts, this project focused on making arts-based learning a lot more approachable, inspiring, and achievable with what’s already around.
Rather than just an activity book, a scalable and visually structured system was created — one that could work across schools, adapt to different learning styles, and make space for both creativity and reflection in the classroom.
This project highlighted how design can support both learning and teaching — even in constrained settings. It reinforced the value of building empathetic, scalable systems that are clear, flexible, and grounded in real-world use.
