One of the greatest upsides of infusing art into your work is what I like to call “creative serendipity”. Now, infusing art into your work, whatever your work is, doesn’t mean that you add fancy designs to your work, trying to make it visually appealing. Rather, it is “human act, a generous contribution, something that might not work, and it is intended to change the recipient for the better, often causing a connection to happen” (Seth Godin). And the generous act of infusing art into your work, even though it’s intended to change the recipient, often raises the level of the work being done in unexpected ways.
Take for example the syllabus I’m working on for my Psychology of Learning course. When working on the “Class Schedule” portion, I initially was going to add an image of a dog to the background (since dogs are such a important part of the history of research in learning, and also cute). However, just then, I realized that if I took frames from a video of the dog, I could place successive frames on each page. This would create an animated sequence as a student flips through the class schedule.
Practically speaking…
Will this increase a students understanding of the syllabus? No.
Does this make the syllabus easier to read? No (although, thankfully it doesn’t make it harder).
However…
Might this not work? Yes.
Is it intended to change the recipient for the better? Yes (I hope the discovery brightens their day).
Will it often causing a connection to happen? Yes. Any student that notices the animation will know that their teacher cares enough to put in the effort for this contribution.
If nothing else, I like the effect. So, all in all, time well spent.