Students ‘serve’ unique art
The Visual Communication Design Senior Exhibit was held on April 1, at The Wheeler Arts Center. The seven seniors who put together the show are Travis Gaddis, Clarissa Fairchild, John Lasky, Jordan Tremper, Austin Cook, Bethany Schroeder and Chelsey Chang.
Senior VCD students (l-r) Austin Cook, Bethany Schroeder, Jordan Tremper, John Lasky, Clarissa Fairchild, Chelsey Chang and Travis Gaddis display their food art. Photo contributed by Clarissa Fairchild.
According to Fairchild, she and Shroeder were the designers of the group. Lasky created an interactive CD, which is a portfolio of the seven seniors who displayed their work at the show. Gaddis, Cook and Tremper were part of the gallery management team, in charge of building panels that were the installation pieces at the show. Chang was in charge of scheduling.
VCD seniors are required to host an exhibit such as this each year.
“The purpose of this exhibition was to show our work and talent that we each have worked towards for the past four years,” Fairchild said. “We each showcased some of our best works of design.”
This year’s theme for the show was “Served,” and the students put together flyers and invitations for the event around campus depicting many different kinds of food as art.
“We each took a food group that pretty much made no sense to put together. I was in charge of the chocolate-covered bananas and strawberries,” Fairchild said. “The purpose of the theme was to serve ourselves to the design world.”
Fairchild said she has seen herself grow, not only in her design over the past four years, but by putting the show together too.
“As I went through my stuff for the past four years, for the best projects for the show, I saw the stuff I’d done freshman and sophomore year and I noticed a huge difference,” Fairchild said. “So I’ve definitely learned a lot in the little design aesthetics like typography and grid systems.”
Fairchild and Gaddis both mentioned their real-life experience in working with the group, planning and producing not only the show but their own works of design. Although the task was not an easy one, the group learned what pulling off a real art exhibition demands and gained tremendous experience in doing so.
“Just from planning our show, we have learned so much about working in a collaborative group setting,” Fairchild said. “The whole point of the show is to pretty much have real-life experience that we will have as designers.”
According to Fairchild, everything from the title, “Served,” to the location, the promotional materials, (which include a postcard invitation, posters, brochures, an interactive portfolio CD) and all of the installation designs, the food and the setup at the show were created by the group.
She said that the seven students each had different roles to get everything accomplished, but decided everything together as a group. Besides the usual five hours of class per week, they met Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights every week.
“I was part of the gallery managing team, so we had to build all the panels and plan out the floor layouts for the gallery,” Gaddis said. “I was the print manager, so I was responsible for sending the files to the printer and making sure there were no mistakes.”
Gaddis said putting together the gallery was the most work but also the most rewarding task he completed for the show.
“I want people to think the seven of us are good designers and we’re capable of being out in the real design world,” Gaddis said.
The show will be moved from the Wheeler Arts Center to the gallery in Good Hall and will be open to the public until April 8.
