The class of 2020 created some spectacular beverage photos. I’m looking forward to seeing the food photos coming in a couple weeks, they will likely be even better.
Thirst quencher
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GDC Club Enjoys Fargo Trip
Club members enjoyed a recent trip to Fargo where they experienced an afternoon of touring and accolades. Before the afternoon kicked off, the group enjoyed fantastic wood-fired pizza at Blackbird in Downtown Fargo. They also dropped in on GDC Alum Rob Burke’s business Yarn before heading to Spotlight Media.
That evening the club members attended the gala AAF-ND Awards Show at the Avalon where Kylie Susag walked away with a Gold Addy for her Batter Life Campaign. The GDC Class of 2019 took home a Silver Addy for their totally awesome, 80s-inspired PROOF Magazine. Ty Betts also managed to pull down $75 in prize money for winning two rounds of heads-or-tails.
Pictured (from left to right): Alyssa Simpron, Nathan Livedalen, Ty Betts (Vice President), Brady Braun, Carlee Gifford, Haylee Jones (President), Kylie Susag (Secretary), Marcus Taken Alive, and Jacob Schwarz (Treasurer).
What is that light in the sky?
We’ve all seen them, but nobody admits it … little green people in spaceships. Okay, maybe we haven’t – but it’s easy to imagine images of UFOs visiting good old mother earth. Here are a few that students created.
50s Smart Phone
Imagine if the smart phone was a technology developed in the 1950s. How would the advertising of that era showcase this modern marvel? Students in the Typography class were challenged with this concept. Given a stock image they were to design an ad featuring a smart phone being careful to use typefaces and design trends common in the 1950s. It was a great way to stress how important design details are to the historical context of a piece.
Monster Masquerade
Halloween was the perfect time for the first-year students in Sean Thorenson’s Digital Illustration class to create a series of seasonally appropriate ‘masks’. Using symmetry and only two spot colors, this assignment demonstrated the challenge of designing with limited color as well as the efficiency of the reflect tool. We have a lot of scary-good talent in this year’s group! Here are just a few of the illustrations from the classes.
The Venus of Vector
After four weeks of analog illustration, our Graphic Design and Communications students opened Adobe Illustrator today — many for the first time.
I remember my first time launching the program — 28 years ago. Just a few things have changed about Illustrator since its inception in 1987. For one, the splash screen.
The unofficial covergirl of this vector workhorse was always a creative incarnation of Botticelli’s famous painting ‘Birth of Venus’. She graced the launch of the app up until Adobe went the way of the Creative Suite in 2003.
If you’re a designasaur like me, you probably remember these images.
Getting bigger …
This week we purchased a used printer from the great folks at McQuade Distributing. The McQuade sign shop is a pretty amazing place, printers are buzzing and computers are humming. The single room turns out an incredible amount of material. It’s run by Rhea Beto, who is a member of of the Graphic Design and Communications Advisory Board. Tasha Hager, a GDC graduate, works in the sign shop as well Both are all-around fabulous people. They helped us pack up and load the printer using a forklift with some help from another McQuade employee.
After a little tinkering, we have produced our first prints – they look great and it’s much faster than our old Epson. The big bonus is that it can print material up to 60-inches wide, that will simplify many tasks for us.
Cases on display
Design education of 20 years ago offered three-credit courses in production skills – using a razor knife, spray mounting art work and generally creating physical pieces in the most analogue ways. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy spot in our day-to-day curriculum for those skills at this point, but the display case project helps fill the gap.
The display case project is a marathon – starting with planning, moving through design and into production. The project starts with the beginning of the fall semester and pushes through to the beginning of finals week.
The project is meant to teach a bunch of pieces – selling your concept to a group, getting behind an idea even if it isn’t yours and massive amounts of production skills.
The designs in the two cases below will be up for the next calendar year.
The end is near
Former students will probably recognize the class day countdown on the board of room 330 in the Career Academy. It tracks the number of class day left until finals week – today the clock is hanging at one day left. The semester has flown by!
Racing to the finish
The sophomore Graphic Design and Communications students have been designing new displays for the area outside of the classrooms for several years. A lot of time goes into researching topics, designing the pieces and producing the elements.
The goal is to have students complete the display case project at the end of the first semester. Each year, the three instructors feel like the deadline is going to be missed and every year the students have pulled through. Once again, this year, the teachers are worried about making the deadline.
With only two production Fridays remaining, the students will have to work hard to complete the cases outside of class.
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- Cutting and gluing – with a saw and a razor knife.
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- Working hard creating a display case design.
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- Tearing down the screen printing display.