Category: BFA

Professor Joel Gendron’s Basic Typography students were asked to choose a segment from a song and create a typographic poster inspired by the work of chalk artist Dana Tanamachi.  The focus of this project was to create a visual interpretation of a song using Stabilo chalk pastel pencil on black drawing paper.  The final products were recently on display in the hallway near room 256.

Victoria Burnett and Jacquelyn Schaab, two NESAD students, won first and second place in the Grand Circle Gallery’s Vintage Poster Contest.

Victoria describes the contest, “The challenge of the contest was to create an interpretation of a vintage travel poster that promotes one of Grand Circle Corporation’s travel destinations. It must highlight an aspect of the destination’s history, culture, landscapes, or attractions. Ultimately, the goal was to create a design that could become a classic image for the ages.”

Check out their winning posters!

“I picked the Eastern Europe trip from the list of Grand Circle Gallery trips, because it was a region that I have been interested in visiting, but did not know a lot about. I choose to represent Budapest, Hungary in my illustration, mainly for its ease of recognition over the other cities the trip toured. I focused on the Parliament building as well as the famous chain-linked bridge. My color palette was inspired by various vintage travel posters, which had a consistent limited color palette. The simplicity of my illustration and choice of typography was also inspired by a compilation of vintage travel posters.”

— Jacquelyn

“My poster promoted Grand Circle Travel’s “Real Affordable Costa Rica” travel destination. I wanted to create a poster that was relatively simple with an attractive and attention-grabbing image that showcased the country without stereotyping it. I decided to focus on the beauty of nature in Costa Rica. I did some research to find a landscape image that best represented the destination. Then I decided that I needed an extraelement to attract the viewer [other than the landscape.] I researched animals in Costa Rica and chose to use a tree frog since I believed it would be the most recognizable and attractive to the viewer. I rendered the images using the pen tool in Illustrator through the process of graphic translation.“

— Victoria

Grand Circle Gallery is holding a reception on May 11th from 4 to 7 pm to celebrate the designs. Be sure to check it out!

Marie-Anne Verougstraete, a graphic design teacher at The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University, knows how important it is for graphic designers to work for social causes, “Graphic Design has a social function: it can make a difference in social situations, can improve the environment in which people live, and can give people new ways to think about things. In a way, graphic designers serve the community and I think it’s important that they use their talent for the greater good, not just to make a living.”

This past spring, Marie-Anne and students in her Computer Typography classes participated in Font Aid V: Made for Japan.

Font Aid is a part of the Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA), an international not-for-profit
organization that supports the promotion, study, and support of type, its history and development, its use in print and digital imagery, and its designers and admirers.

Font Aid V began in March 2011 and is a collaborative project between typographers and designers to raise funds for Japan after the devestating earthquake and tsunami. According to SOTA’s site, “Nearly 300 contributors from 45 countries sent in over 500 glyphs in a single week.” The typeface is complete and ready for purchase for $20 at MyFonts, Veer, Fonts.com, and Linotype.

Marie-Anne had been involved with Font Aid previously after the earthquake in Haiti. Her Computer Typography classes of Spring 2010 participated in the creation of Font Aid IV: Coming Together, a font made entirely of ampersands to represent the idea of people uniting to help each other. After the disasters in Japan, she was called upon to participate in Font AID V: Made for Japan. This typeface was made up entirely of glyphs that symbolize Japan in some way.

Upon telling her students that they would be involved in the creation of Font Aid V: Made for a Japan, “They were excited to have the opportunity to work on a real world project and to contribute to a great cause. They created beautiful work. ”

Learn more about the Society of Typographic Aficianados and Font Aid here.

Three NESAD undergraduate students have made it into the semifinal round of the Say Something Poster Project!

The Say Something Poster Project is a design competition meant to provide designers with the opportunity to create a poster that inspires, motivates, or educates teenage kids. Each year, the ten winning posters are donated to a non-profit organization to install in their facility.

Alan Auger, Olivea Pearl Kelly, and Gabrielle Kozera designed the posters in NESAD’s Fall 2011 Computer Applications in Design class taught by Marie-Anne Verougstraetes.

Check out the rest of the semifinalists’ posters here.

Voting for finalists will take place the day of the show; each visitor will be invited to vote for their favorite top ten posters. Don’t miss the Boston Poster Show on Saturday February 25th at Fourthwall Project Gallery and support your fellow NESAD students with your vote!

NESAD students are developing their graphic design skills while simultaneously exploring new cultures!

A handful of BFA students have or will be interning at ICON Worldwide in Switzerland. ICON Worldwide is an international marketing agency made up of award-winning designers, developers, and strategists. Two 2011 graduates, Amy Parker and Lauren DeFranza, interned this past summer and three new students, Hope Reagan, Jacqueline Schaab, and Shawn Semmes will be doing the same in the summer of 2012.

Both girls agree that exploring the Swiss culture was a once in a lifetime experience.
Amy Parker describes, “Switzerland offered adventure, new experience, and risk taking. I climbed the Swiss Alps, learned a little Swiss German, met life-long international friends, plunged in glacier water, and discovered real Swiss Cuisine.”

Lauren DeFranza says, “Amsterdam is by far the most beautiful and cultured city in my opinion…it’s the kind of city that was meant for young people to explore. Both Ms. Amy Parker and I had quite the adventure–we met some nice people, tried new things, and only got lost a few times.”

Amy and Lauren also grew as designers.

Amy says she was pushed to develop creative design solutions for clients’ brochures and websites layouts and logo branding. She explains, “I learned how to defeat my own stubbornness, and how to truly listen to input from others with completely different perspectives. My internship experience prepared me to expect the unexpected and inspired me to keep moving forward, growing, searching, looking, drawing, and becoming a better visual communicator. The experience absolutely changed my life.”

Lauren explains how she learned the importance of problem solving, “Problem solving is what graphic designers and web developers do best and I truly believe you can’t have one without the other.”

She also offers some advice on being a life-long student, “From my experience at ICON Worldwide, I know how important it is to understand the language and technology before I can create the design, which is why I will never stop being a student. Remember, as long as you keep yourself open to learning new things, there will always be more room to grow. Don’t ever think you know everything.”

Read more about Amy and Lauren’s experiences at ICON Worldwide at their blogs:
seelaurendesign.tumblr.com
amyparkerdesign.wordpress.com

Best of luck to the new set of NESAD graphic designers who will embark on their own Switzerland journey this summer!