Graphic Design Program Advisory Board

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004

6:00pm - 8:00pm

Art Room 205B

 

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Meeting Notes

Members present:

 

Mount Art Faculty:

Jerry Bellas, Art Department Chair

Beth Belknap Brann

Michael Kroeger

Todd Lott

Kathy Salchow

 

Graphic Design Alumni:

Jonathan Albers, Madison Design Group (‘95)

Jenni Braun, The Hillman Group (‘04)

Dave Bushle, American Red Cross (’88)

Stephanie Dwyer, Huff Realty (’00)

Tricia Johnson, MSJ Design Office (‘97)

Joe Kruessel, U. S. Digital Partners (’00)

 

Previous Graphic Design Faculty:

Dan Croft, Willow Creative Group

Krishna Joshi, Miami University Faculty

 

Current Mount Students:

Sharon Cornuelle

Bruce Hager

 

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Discussion Points:

1. What is Unique to the Mount?

- it’s a hidden jewel among other colleges here

- evening classes for non-traditional students

- co-op program

- attention from faculty

- you know everybody

- teachers know your strengths and weaknesses

- you get to know your teachers

- the mount has an equal level of excellence for both fine art and graphic design

- fine art skills shown in portfolios add strength to the job candidate

- adjuncts from the field bring real world perspective

- adjuncts serve as a bridge between the classroom and co-op

- flexible structure of classes

- emphasis on academic classes adds strength to writing and communication skills

- broad education help our students think in different ways

- one on one attention from the faculty

- lots of class interaction

- cooperative environment allows the students to feed off each other

- cooperation translates to work environments, if you do well the department does well

- competition in co-op interviews, with multiple interviews and selection process

- Mount co-op students can work the whole year

- Mount students have a great attitude, a sense of humility

- Mount students have good problem-solving abitliy

 

 

2. What are the regional trends in graphic design?

- you can’t just do print anymore, but include web, video and CD skills

- the client values you for your unique skills and use partnering for a complete campaign

- being a generalist can be a drawback

- our field is more fragmented with all the media available

- you can be a generalist or a specialist

- people are more mobile now

- a full career at one company is not going to happen

- in corporate design, you have to be more than just a designer, also a marketer, writer, researcher, etc.

- perhaps a negative trend is that everyone with a computer thinks they are a designer\- how to differentiate ourselves from the secretary with design software?

- we’re the coal miner for the 21st century

- clients don’t value our service

- educating your client, talking graphic design to the common person should be in the program

- in class, put projects up on the board every week and talk about them

- senior year students could have several projects going on concurrently

- there is a greater design sensibility and sophistication in the consumer

 

 

3. In looking at our curriculum, any suggestions or thoughts?

- keep emphasis early on hand skills

- there is a direct correlation between hand and computer skills

- our strong drawing emphasis is good to be able to illustrate an idea for a client in a few minutes

- we need more emphasis on real world application of lots of text

- develop a grid, develop a style

- use gutter spaces, column spaces effectively

- text is the weakest part of our senior poster project

- if there is one thing lacking in our students, it is their use of type

- they are not ready in junior year to co-op

- Miami Univ. has students using paragraphs of type first in sophomore year

- type is image

- organization of type helps communication

- few of our students know how to set files up for print

 

 

4. Where do we want to be 5 - 10 years from now?

- who are we and what do we want to be?

- how can we become greater than UC?

- push students harder to be what they need to be

- our students do what they have to do to get by

- meet with students more than once a week

- put teeth into sophomore portfolio review

- our students don’t have to work to get in

- they would work harder if they had to compete for a spot in our program

- good students get frustrated at the less motivated students

- offer more critique prizes

- give them more projects, give them a chance to fail

- make it so that students see more alumni out in the field come in

- there should be a graphic design alumni web network

- there should be more alumni activities