BW’s Graphic Design Senior Showcase returned this spring semester on Jan. 27 at Fawick Art Gallery. The theme, “FLOURISH,” reflected the students’ experience in their portfolio review course, taught by the Digital Media Design Coordinator Erica Lull, and the Director of the Hive Design Group Sara Wichtendal.
Claire Fischer, a senior graphic design major, is one of the graphic design students featured in this year’s exhibition. Fischer said this year’s theme developed from the class brainstorming and landing on words related to growth and graphic design.
“We brainstormed words that symbolized moving past college and entering the real world. We literally had a whiteboard full of words, but then we landed on ‘FLOURISH’ and voted and narrowed it down until we got to that one,” Fischer said.
The class also got to design their interpretation of the theme’s graphic and vote on which gets to be the main graphic of the exhibition. The class voted on Callie Lopez’s interpretation to represent the exhibition, which includes a floral design with pink and purple hues.
Contrasting to the previous Graphic Design Senior Showcase, “ECLIPSE,” this year’s class has doubled in size, growing from five students to eleven. Each student had a role in marketing for the exhibition. For example, Fischer oversaw designing the postcards and making pillow packs for the attendees, which included stickers, buttons and a sheet of each student’s logos.
Lopez created the main design, which was displayed on the campus TV screens. Other students featured in the exhibition were also assigned roles such as making brochures, stickers and buttons alongside running the social media.
“Everyone gets a little piece of the marketing, which is really cool,” Fischer said. “It’s not just handed over to our professors, who are already doing so much. We get to build our own show and be a part of branding, marketing and advertising for people to actually show up.”
In her own interpretation of graphic design, more modernly known as “visual communication design,” Fischer said it can be versatile, utilizing it through a corporate fashion to market and advertise, but as both a designer and viewer, she leans towards designs that bring people together and get people involved in the community.
“I have realized that something that’s really important to me in my designs is being able to help people and educate people,” Fischer said. “I have a piece in the exhibition that is about the benefits of visiting the zoo, which is something I like to do anyway. So then getting to share that passion with other people, things like that build community, that is stuff I am drawn to and participate in.”
Lull said a message she would like to give to underclassman graphic design majors is to take the feedback you’ve been given by a professor and utilize it to improve your work, even after the grade is given.
“You’re gonna move on to the next project, but you should take that feedback and implement those changes early because once you’re a senior and you’re doing this work, it’s intense. So, if you have some of the changes started, even though there will always be changes, you won’t have to go back and do some basic stuff,” Lull said.
Fischer said that she hopes attendees will see that graphic design takes many different forms, and there’s a lot to appreciate.
“I think graphic design is looked over sometimes because it’s everywhere, whereas fine art feels a bit more separated. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to a place to see art,’ as opposed to graphic design where it is everywhere all the time, and there are so many different styles. Just in this exhibit, every single person has their own little type of style, and their own inspiration and own background where they came from,” Fisher said.
Lull said that she hopes attendees will be impressed with the hard work the students have done to create their designs, and that they see what graphic design truly is other than just using Photoshop.
“The idea of seeing the vast array, the amount of work, and understanding that it could be a logo, a poster, a website, an infographic, social media ads, print ads, digital ads, all of that work could expand their [attendees] knowledge of what graphic design is and what goes into a project, which I think would be good for anyone,” Lull said.
FLOURISH: Visual Communication Design Senior Exhibition concludes on Feb. 14 with its closing reception in the Fawick Gallery Lobby, located in Kleist Center for Art & Drama.
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