spotlight – Page 2 – The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University

Graphic Design Professor Minko Dimov Creates Commemorative Sculpture

The piece is called “Moment” (instance) and the idea is to visualize the capture of a moment in the form of a piece of a river. The image is very potent when it comes to references and metaphors about life, memory, time flux etc. Dimov tries to express the paradox of the fleeting moment — how we constantly try and fail to retain what we would like to keep forever, the full experience of reality and what we are left with are only memories. Dimov finds this to have been perfectly expressed in the words of Goethe’s Faust when he makes the pact with Mephisto:

Written in Bulgarian, translates as:

If ever I to the moment shall say:
Beautiful moment, do not pass away!
Then you may forge your chains to bind me,
Then I will put my life behind me.

NESAD’s New Illustration Program Director

New England School of Art and Design’s new Illustration Program Director, Lisa French, received the Best of Illustration Award from this years 24th Annual New Hampshire Creative Club. The professional organization has an active regional membership of graphic designers, web designers, advertising creative and illustrators and the annual awards show is juried. Her winning illustration was created for identity and advertising purposes for the Mockingbird Trio, a group of Boston-based professional musicians. The illustration, which included hand-lettered type, was produced with gouache and charcoal.

French also received Awards of Excellence for two additional works: a book cover illustration, Corpse in the Crystal Ball, and a food label for Woodchuck Coffee Roasters, both commissioned pieces.

For more information on the 24th Annual New Hampshire Creative Club, please visit http://www.nhcreativeclub.org/

The Graphic Design Blog

Join NESAD MAGD Graduate, Yvette Perullo, at the Graphic Artists Guild WEBINAR

On June 6th, Yvette Perullo, NESAD Alum and Co-Founder of Re-nourish, will present at the Graphics Artists Guild WEBINAR with guest Gage Mitchell, Creative Director, Modern Species.

“During this one hour webinar Re-nourish co-founder Yvette Perullo will present how practicing communication designers can make positive, greener and pragmatic design decisions and how your communication design practice can apply to the Re-nourish Sustainable Standards for inclusion in their directory. She will share with you the tools she has developed at Re-nourish that will empower you to implement sustainable design into your everyday practice. Special guest Gage Mitchell, Creative Director of the sustainable design studio Modern Species will also be joining the discussion. Finally, there will be an open Q&A during which you will be invited to ask questions of Yvette and Gage.”

Be sure to check out more and register here.

Stephen Plummer Wins Pacemaker Award

The seemingly endless hours of hard work that go into each piece of design are always worth the final product. Stephen Plummer, a graduate student at The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, learned this lesson while working as Editor in Chief at The Bridge, Bridgewater State’s literary journal.

He says, “I developed an appreciation for the finality of publication. Once it’s printed, it’s done, imperfections and all. There are so many nuances to take into consideration (especially when dealing with so much type) that striving to get everything absolutely perfect becomes an enormous task, but ultimately a worthwhile one.”

And he’s certainly right. Stephen and his fellow team members have been awarded the Pacemaker by the Associated Collegiate Press, a national award considered to be the highest honor given to student publications. Design, content, and layout are the three main components taken into consideration.

As Editor in Chief, Stephen played a crucial role in the design and layout of the journal. With helpful input from the entire group, he designed the cover, navigation icons, and certain portfolio pages. Stephen says his experience with The Bridge has also taught him “an invaluable amount about publication, how to best select and place content, and how to make a book that is a cohesive piece.”

Though journal or magazine design may not be in his future, Stephen is sure that the skills he developed from his experience at The Bridge has prepared him for wherever he ends up.

Afraa Gutub’s Photograph Chosen for the Aetna International’s 2012 Calendar

Afraa Gutub, a graduate student at The New England School of Art and Design, says she always carries a camera around with her because “you never know what is waiting for you.”

Afraa jumped at the opportunity to capture a scenic moment at the Charles River when she saw the project “Light Drift” by J. Meejin Yoon, an associate professor of architecture at MIT.

When Afraa heard Aetna was looking for photos that represented “Global Events & Festivals from Around the Globe” for their 2012 calendar contest, she knew she had to enter the “Light Drift” picture.

Afraa’s passion for photography developed while she was in NESAD’s photography class. She says, “Ever since I took that course, I started seeing things differently. Everything I see and intend to capture with my lens, I feel is pictured in my head even before capturing it. Photography has become one of my favorite hobbies.”

Afraa believes graphic designers should participate in contests whenever possible “to express their thoughts and deliver their message to the world.”

Kevin Banks Speaks at NESAD

Kevin Banks, design director at The Phoenix Media Group and previous NESAD graduate student, gave students an inside peek at his work and design process. With the help of DJ Mikey Mike, Kevin gave a music-filled, multi-media presentation to a packed room.

Kevin’s work is full of wit and unrelenting imagination. Take his poster created for the Best Music Poll concert at the City Hall Plaza in 2009. He needed to establish a visual identity for the event before it actually happened. One night, Kevin saw the Bunker Hill Bridge lit up and found his inspiration for the poster. He took a picture of the bridge and merged it with a microphone to establish the largest microphone in Boston for the largest concert in Boston.

Ready to capture any moment, Kevin always carries a camera. Once again, this proved useful come Halloween of ‘08. He surreptitiously snapped photos of Boston’s underground and photoshopped images of ghosts and other unsightly figures within them. The series of photos ran as a Halloween news feature and went viral.

Before entering the corporate world, Kevin worked as an Illustrator in the nineties. Perhaps his illustrative background paved the way for his inventive corporate design work. When asked what he would urge students to do more of, Kevin said students should step away from the computer during the design process. Inspired by his presentation, NESAD student John Connelly said, “Listening to Kevin Banks, I liked his work but it was also great to see how he approached it with abandon and with sense of adventure.”

You can check out more of Kevin’s work here.

Emily Roose’s Masters Thesis, Slow News, on Quipsologies

Do you consider cross-stitching to be a hobby of the past? Well, think again! Emily Roose, a Masters student who graduated in 2011, has transcended the art of cross-stitching into a medium for news distribution.

For her Master’s thesis project, Emily aimed to create something away from the computer. Her solution was to cross-stitch, a skill she had learned only a few months prior. By using news as her subject matter, Emily transformed the nature of modern fast-paced media. Each cross-stitched news story is a timeless piece of work that continues to hold an existence beyond its quick news coverage.

Each piece started as a sketch based on imagery from TV broadcasts and news websites. Twenty-five hours later, Emily turned the sketches into vibrant cross-stitched stories. She says, “I was attracted to the pixelated quality of the stitches, and even though it seems like a very anal-retentive task, it’s actually not when you are not using a pattern and designing as you go. I think of it as a very slow mode of drawing.”

Her work was featured on the popular design blog, Quipsologies. Check it out here. You can also see more of Emily’s work here.

Amy Parker’s Project Featured on The Dieline

Sometimes, the best source of inspiration for a designer comes from his or her personal background.

Amy Parker, a 2011 graduate, was faced with creating a brand and packaging suite for a class taken during her senior year. She called the brand “Ringmaster,” a name that was inspired by her mom. Amy’s mom, also known as Krickey, is a professional clown. Amy explains, “She and I share a love for amazing acts under the big top, and the history it represents. A Ringmaster is a person who conducts the variety show, so by calling the brand “Ringmaster” I intended the logo and imagery to playfully command your attention and showcase a range of different products.”

As the brand developed, Amy found new ways to express her love for the circus through “Ringmaster’s” visual identity.

Amy’s work was showcased on a popular packaging blog called thedieline. Along with her “Ringmaster” brand, the post also featured another packaging project she did while at NESAD. An exciting feat for any student, be sure to check out more here.

What advice does Amy have for future packaging students? “Sketch any idea, even if you think it’s ridiculous (often these are very exciting ideas), listen to feedback, and put passion and effort into the work you create.”

Check out more of Amy’s work.

Victor Cabrera: Winner of American Graphic Design Award (Student Category)

How do you convince someone to stop eating meat? Explaining the gruesome process young chickens endure before they appear on grocery shelves might do the trick. (Did you know that by week seven, chickens are crammed in cages for slaughter?) This was Victor Cabrera’s award winning strategy for an ad series advocating vegetarianism. The ad series was a part of the Graduate Design Studio 2 class, which he took in the spring of 2011 at The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University.

Students were instructed to sell the idea of vegetarianism to an audience comprised mostly of non-vegetarians. They could convince, scare, heckle, plead, threaten, use guilt, reverse psychology, or wear them down, but the audience must become vegetarians.

After researching how various groups advocate for vegetarianism, Victor chose to use guilt. The campaign was so successful, it even worked on himself, “I have to be honest, after finishing the project I spent at least a week or so without eating chicken.”

This was the first time Victor chose to enter his work into a design competition. He believes entering competitons are a great way to get exposure, possibly to potential employers,“it opens up your mind to…approach a potential client or even apply to a company that you thought may not be interested in your work.”