The American University Design Club (AUDC) has been working tirelessly this semester to prepare for their annual design show. They’ve been designing promotional materials, soliciting submissions and inviting professionals to the show.
The show, which will run from April 4-11, serves two purposes: to give students a chance to showcase their graphic design projects to a larger audience and tot bring senior graphic design students into contact with potential employers.
Kicking off on April 4 at 7 p.m. with a reception in the Katzen Arts Center rotunda, student designers will be able to talk about their projects with visitors and potentially share their contact information with professionals from over 100 companies invited to the show. There will be catered food and latte art sponsored by the Davenport Coffee Lounge.
Planning for the show began last semester. Students in an upper-level graphic design class were tasked with developing themes for the show to pitch to members of AUDC. The club ultimately chose the theme developed by graphic design major Sofia Elian, a senior in CAS, “Out of the Sketchbook and Into the Fire.”
Elian is the art director for the show. In developing the theme, she wanted to make connections between the creative processes of graphic designers and chefs.
“A lot of people don’t really consider how much time or effort or work goes into creating a design,” she said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into something that you’re appreciating, just like any meal that you eat that a chef put their time into creating. There’s many different ingredients, many different ways that people have to get to their end goal.”
AUDC received over 80 submissions and a panel of three graphic design professionals from Deloitte Digital, InVision, and Friendly Design Co. accepted about 60 percent of them into the show. First, second and third place awards will be announced at the reception.
Pieces in the show include websites, a smartphone app and various printed works. AUDC will post the pieces online before the opening reception. Senior Alex Law is the show’s web developer.
For her, the website is “just another way that we’re able to present student work to a mass number of people and not just the people visiting the show.”
While the focus of the show is promoting graphic design students, AUDC also wants the AU community to learn more about design. Senior Zachary Porter, president of AUDC, wants people to notice design in their everyday lives.
“Really good design flies under the radar,” Porter said.
Porter, Law and Elian hope the show increase students’ interest in the major.
“We’re a small program and all of us just want to see it grow as exponentially as possible,” Law said.
Elian herself only decided to major in graphic design after talking to other students in the program.
“None of us were design majors to begin with,” Elian said. “I feel like if I wasn’t really exposed to a student who did graphic design I wouldn’t have known about pursuing it or I would have maybe thought about it a little too late in the game.”
