“We can’t make a toaster anymore, a VCR, or even a decent faucet, but we can create desire,” says David Hickey in 1997 in his book Air Guitar. To create desire will be the mission of the graduating graphic designers in this age of highly competitive commercialism. It is about finding the colors, fonts and graphics that attracts the most eyes in the human pool and being the illusionist who plays trick with our minds not letting that desire to go.
The Senior Exhibition opened on December 10, and will be on display for 11 days in the Cora Miller Gallery of the York College Galleries. Before the opening of the show, the five graduating students showed examples of their work in a slide presentation. During their presentation the large audience not only learned about their work but also got a glimpse into their personal lives and interests woven into their final project. While the two award winners, Billy Ford and Bridget Palmer, were able to create mature, marketable pieces, the others stayed behind by showing their young personalities seep through their project
Bridget Palmer was the recipient of the Best in Show Award. Her work connects personal content with functionality and good design. Bridget created a logo, tags, reusable bags, egg boxes, stickers and pins for her farm that she hopes to build into a profitable business in the future. Research transformed her work from conformist farm qualities into a distinct color palette and packaging design. Willow Hill, the name of her project, has a vintage feel but with modern colors and timely ideas of organic farming. Her egg boxes reach back to the 1920s for their design and are dressed up in contemporary colors to cater to the taste of the 21st century. The logo consists of a simple, easy-to-ready typeface concluded with an outline of a rooster under the falling branches of willow, inspired by Pecker the cocky rooster of the farm. The text framed with gentle curving lines is carried through the different pieces of the work. Careful planning and execution provided cohesiveness between boxes, tags, bags and the other pieces by repeating the design elements and bright colors of green, blue, cyclamen and purple and carrying the used materials from one to another. Bridget is interested in typography, color theory and the communicative quality of simple, elegant forms and shapes. She hopes to expand her horizon as a graphic designer and become an art director one day.
Billy Ford, the 2nd place winner, created Applied Automotive Knowledge, an information package of auto repair and maintenance for the everyday dilettantes. This work includes a company logo, print advertisement, carry along vehicle maintenance guide, and a website. The idea of AAK comes from Billy’s lifelong relationship with cars and racing. Using only two colors, black and red on white background, he created a strong identity for his fictional company that very well could become reality. Simple but communicative and direct graphics are the strength of Billy’s project. He used design elements, easy to read typeface, repetition, contrast and proximity, in a neat organized fashion to provide a clean and user-friendly website that gives simple instructions on how to repair and maintain your car, instead of paying hundreds of dollars for someone for a job most of us could do on our own. The resourceful idea of the project and the successful design could easily stand the competitive race of graphic design and hoped to be a live website and helpful guide in car maintenance for car owners in the near future.
Billy would like to continue screen printing and expand his career as a freelance graphic designer taking his talent to the northern part of California.
Genevieve Shaner’s project caters to pet lovers. She made a binder, called PetNotes, to help pet owners organize information, like vaccination, illnesses and health records and also to record fun stories of their lives. She chose the contrasting colors of blue and orange and used circular forms to encase paw prints in a repeated pattern on the outside of the binder. The inside repeats the hues but replaces the circles with simple horizontal lines. The repetition keeps the personality of the piece and the simple lines and dimmed colors let the inside content, notepad, DVD holders, jump drive holder, pen and record keeping pages, be effective. Genevieve is planning to pursue her carrier as a graphic designer and take more concentrated classes to further develop her skills in the field.
Vincent Sparacino features Brain Taffy: A Collection of Ramblings, an entirely hand written and illustrated collection of his poems. The black and white colors and the comic book style drawings take the viewer into the mind of Vincent as he lays his stream of consciousness on paper. The work has an “imperfect personal quality,” Vincent remarked, and is intended to show his colorful palette of talents and interests not only in design, but music, lyrics, literature and philosophy. Vincent is looking for an opportunity to incorporate his diverse interest of the humanities into a profession where he can express his ideas, perhaps as an author/illustrator.
Ethan Gallardo’s Pixel Bliss sentimentally recalls the heyday of game arcades and invites the visitors to play. The project was inspired by Ethan’s love of video games and science fiction. The graphics consist of hand drawn components blended with digital collage that work with 3D glasses. Ethan’s design embraces the manipulation of letters through the experiment with typography, the guiding qualities of colors and the communicative properties of collage. Ethan is open to try different things perhaps in a position at a silkscreen company or graphic design firm.
The semester is quickly approaching its end lifting the weight of tests and paper deadlines off the graduating students’ shoulders and freeing them into the sometimes intimidating world of job search and competition. This exciting new stage in the lives of future alumnae will probe and challenge them as aspiring professionals, but will also round and enrich their character. Good luck and farewell Graduates!
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