Abstract: Today the design activity holds a high position in the educational process of the modern schools as it forms the students’ need and readiness for independent acquisition of the new knowledge, develops their personal qualities, teaches how to implement the own ideas in physical or esthetical form. Along with that in the course of review of the research literature (Emelyanova, Eremeyeva and Kalashnikova), we have found out that this kind of activity in the artistic education has been under investigated. Therefore, we referred to the concept of the artistic-design activity nature and determination of its pedagogical potential influencing the simultaneous, integrated activation of such components of the graphical skills development in adolescents as cognitive, practical, motivational, perceptive, emotional-sensual one. The following methods have been used in the research: review of the pedagogical, psychological, art science literature, analysis of the educational, program and regulatory documentation; observation, surveying, testing, interviewing, method of expert assessment, pedagogical experiment, generalization and systematization of empirical material, interpretation of data obtained. The result is that this study reveals the peculiarities of the artistic-design activity, its high pedagogical potential represented by the unity of the educational, developing and motivation functions has been determined and experimentally proven which promotes to the efficient and integrated development of graphical skills in adolescents. Practical relevance of the research consists in the fact that the results obtained may be accounted for and used by development of the adapted and proprietary educational programs by the arts and design teachers at general education schools and institutions for additional education providing specialized artistic training.