Dear Studio 360,
I love what @Hyperakt has done with redesigning the teacher, but keep going! Redesign the nurse! A Google images search of "Nurse" found a sickening amount of "sexy" and "slutty" nurse costumes and a few clip art nurses. A new concept is needed to help transform the way some of society depicts nurses. Do a Google search of "doctor" "teacher" or "lawyer" aside from a few cartoons, you have to search quite a bit to get a derogatory image. Please help! We are facilitators of healing, educators, counselors, and scientists and our redesign should translate this!

-Robin Pietrobono BSN, RN

The designers' TEACH design, which "compares the art of teaching to connecting dots," is applaudable within the constraint of good design. However, within the equally important constraint of effective communication, I'm less complimentary. Good design must be more than aesthetic; it must also communicate effectively (i.e., without intrusion of confusion or uncertainty). Because this concept/visual looks like BRAILLE, it suffers the probable disadvantage of communicating only (or primarily) to deaf students and teachers (and those associated with them), rather than to a universal audience. Back to the drawing board? I say, Yes, please...

Please redesign "the humanites". Seen as hasty,old,passive, they are the vital core of our questioning, searching, the aquifers of knowledge to be drawn up to renew and refresh in face of today's nightmarish challenges. And yes I am president of the Minnesota Humanities Center.

How about the Bus. Not so much the bus itself, but the act of taking the bus.

If our transportation system is going to make it past the single-occupancy vehicle, Americans are going to have to get over their prejudices related to taking the bus.

A little weird and abstract, I know.

I think rebranding teachers in America is absolutely a necessity. What routes could that take?

What does the traditional symbol of a red apple signify? I don't think I or my peers distribute apples everyday; in an urban school (where the vast majority of the students qualify for free lunch), we give time and quality education to students who not only deserve it but to which they have a right.

Many teachers agree: teachers are often fighting for equity among all members of our society, no matter their age. How can your rebranding address that? How can it address the mastery that a teacher works to attain as well as the emotional/psychological care-taking that teaching requires? How can your rebranding address the stamina it must take for teachers in the system many years to stay fighting against the negative criticism that falls on their shoulders year after year?

For your next re-design (love that you've taken on teachers/teaching), if it's not too much to ask, could you please re-design the United States to be a country I can be proud to live in again? A country where our elected officials co-operate for the good of the people they govern? thanks, Karen

The redesign of teachers needs to include a person in armor because we have to be ready to fight. We fight to be respected in an age when it seems ok to place all blame aimed at the school system at the feet of teachers. We fight against a department of education that constantly rolls out new standards and policies that do not take teachers on the ground experiences into account. We fight against a national culture that values quick answers over hard work and study time in an age where the in-demand (STEM) careers demand concentration and devotion. We fight against poverty by providing our students with extra help that their parents cannot afford to give.

I think the new symbol for 21st century teachers should be Jesus Christ, since it seems that everyone thinks that we are in the business of performing miracles and saving humanity. We can't do it alone, folks.

Redesign the spice rack - the ones out there never have enough bottles, take up too much space and always seems to overflow into drawers or shelves making it impossible to find what you are looking for.

We at TeachersCount.org love what you're doing to help change the current image of who teachers are and what they do. We are a national non-profit dedicated to raising the status of the teaching profession and providing services to the teaching community. Our 'Behind Every Famous Person is a Fabulous Teacher' campaign aims to show just how important our nation's teachers are. We love that others share our goals.

This is my fiftheen year of teaching 8-11 year olds. I still jump out of bed every morning (almost) and look forward to my work each day.

When you redesign teachers, make sure there's a heart at the center of the logo and many extra hands.

As a teacher who got her first teaching job in 1975 and who has been teaching in the NYC public schools for the last 19 years, I'd like to debunk the myth that veteran teachers are stuck in the past and unwilling to adapt to new ideas. This profession requires flexible and creative thinking no matter how long you've been at it, and no age group has a monopoly on that skill. Great teaching isn't about trends and fads; it's about making authentic connections with kids and their learning.

Now that you've decided on the teacher, and the apple crapple, maybe you should come to Wenatchee, Washington. It's the self-proclaimed Apple Capitol of the World. I can only imagine that where apple crapple is everywhere, there must be teachers who deserve to receive better. Maybe you could contact some of them about better imagery. Just a thought (from a woman whose kids' teachers are getting car wash gift certificates and homemade jam and salsa for Christmas!).

Hurrah! I became a teacher 2 years ago after 20 plus years in television news (as a network producer) and think in some part my delay in making the switch was due to the "everyone can do it reputation" of teaching as a career choice. Just because we were all students once upon a time, there is this idea that we can do what teachers do. Just walk into a school, grab a piece of chalk (or expo dry erase marker these days) and share what you know, right? How hard can it be? Boy, have I learned my lesson and I would love to spread the word. Teaching is the hardest job I have ever had!

The teachers I have worked with are all INCREDIBLY talented, and work INCREDIBLY hard. It's highly physical and requires giving of yourself each and every day. And after classes, teachers go home and plan for the next day.... or grade 120 papers because class sizes have doubled. It never ends. Summers off? Not exactly. Planning starts again! And teachers do a lot of planning and revising and planning again. The great news is that it's incredibly rewarding - all of it. I love what I do much the same way I loved creating stories for television.

We as teachers have to do a better job of showing the world what it is we do. Thank you for making a public effort to improve the common misconceptions about the profession.

Here were the most inspiring quotes to me when I was a teacher for several years: (1) "I touch the future ... I teach" and (2) a line that went something like this, from a Katie Couric TV special about the importance of treating children as a key constituency in policy decisions - "Children are only 25% of our current population, so don't have much policy clout ... but they're 100% of our future population, so they should." Maybe these can inspire your re-design, too. Teachers and teaching? Outstanding choice!

Thank you for the re-design!

I am going to ask my peers to jump on this opportunity to change our image! As teachers, in this age of hyper-mode students, we need to educate, entertain, expand and engage our students. We are a highly skilled group with potential with amazing content knowledge and adaptability. We must be sharp, knowledgeable, creative and -yes- sometimes trendy!

THANK YOU!!!

I am going to encourage my peers to send in their teacher comments. We are a highly educated, skilled, cutting edge and even somewhat trendy group these days. In a time when kids are on hyper - stimulate mode we must educate, entertain, expand and engage students. We are the ultimate (to use a somewhat passe phrase) multi-taskers. How can we help with suggestions? THANK YOU!

I have been teaching 3rd and 4th grade for 18 years in one elementary school. Over that time I have been the only male on the faculty. (I've been told that they hadn't had a man teaching at this school for the previous 15 years. And he had died during the year.) The apple/crapple has never "worked" for a man. Please take the feminine edge off whatever you come up with.

I think we should redesign the United States. It's too big, it's too disparate, too hard to govern...I think it would be better divided up into 3 or 4 countries or principalities. Midwest, Northeast, Southern, West...it could be brilliant!!!

Things that could use a redesign:

board meetings
affordable housing
long distance bus travel
oatmeal
work cubicles
strip malls
social demonstrations
convenience stores
the wig

This is not a re-design, but I was thinking that the "Occupy" movement's aims seem so unfocussed that they would benefit from a logo at the very least. And come to that, does the Tea Party have a visual identity? Might as well help them out at the same time, in the interests of political balance.

Redesign the on-line newspaper experience to look & feel like a newspaper; form factor, layout etc. It' no problem to scroll and scan a screen, just like folding and turning pages of a paper.

And there could certainly be a link from a front page piece to page 'A 14' for the rest of the article, and a Return. That actually would be an improvement over print papers.

Seattle Times' Comics is presented as a list of links to click. There's no reason why a single Comics page could not be laid-out just as in the paper, to scroll and scan.

I accept that the media is changing. I only suggest that we not throw-out an experience and form-factor that has been refined and served us well for some two centuries.

I will continue to get a daily newspaper until my iPad can swat flies, cover my head during a sudden shower, allow for shy flirtations across a crowded cafe or absorb my cat's urine.

Thanks, Kurt.

Scott Garside

The fact that old movies aren't old. I read somewhere, that someone was quoted as saying "Old movies aren't old, they are new movies that you've never seen" Just because a movie is black & white or lacks any kind of special or affects or has a release date prior to the 1960's does not immediately make it, dull, stupid or dated. Older movies are just movies you've never seen, hence, making them new movies.

Immigrants need a new PR person. The deliberate demonizing of this population coupled with the current economic climate has immigrants to the U.S. in a losing position. The stereotypes associated with immigrants include such misconceptions as: they steal U.S. jobs, they use up U.S. social services, and they are not trustworthy. Can we give these folks a break already and find a way to highlight their contributions and debunk the negative stereotypes to finally acknowledge the positive impact of the growing population of Americans. . . . please?

Redesign elephants! They weigh too much to keep as pets!

Redesign the internet. Not just the WWW but all of it. Give it a symbol, a meaning, a trope.

Redesign geeks. In this economy, what is the unemployment percentage for scientists (physical, chemical, computer), engineers, mathematicians, etc. What is the average income of one of these geeks once they are an adult? What is their average worth when they are 40, 50, etc? Heck, that makes me think the teachers deserve the makeover from your story. Geeks need to learn after all...

Redesign Congress!

It is not working!