GRAPHIC DESIGN FOR THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Sarah Drake
Plain City, Utah
Interdisciplinary Studies
Leadership engagement track

Graphic Design for the College of Science and Engineering

I have volunteered for the College of Science and Engineering Leadership Board for almost three academic year here at SUU and I have loved every moment of it. Sure is has had its up and downs but the members of the board have become my family away from home. Because of all my wonderful experiences I knew that I wanted my edge project to benefit the leadership board. I also knew that more than anything I wanted my edge project to be a stepping stone to help me reach my future career goals. My edge project allowed me the opportunity to combine both of these goals.

The College of Science and Engineering is arguably the biggest college of campus. The leadership boards sole purpose is to recruit for the college of Since and Engineering. We start recruitment at a very young age. We know science and math tend to get a bad reputation so we orchestrate event on campus that introduce students as young as kindergartners to the many possibilities science has, From there the events only get bigger and more technical. These events help student develop a love for science and engineering and give us opportunities to represent the university’s different programs. The main recruitment item we use are rack cards. The rack cards have been outdated and needed a new look. That is where I came in.

The leadership board is well known among the students we work with, but outside of those groups we are unknown on campus. As a way to develop more of a name for ourselves we wanted to improve our marketing. Our first step we decided was giving all recruitment materials new look, to work with other leadership organization more directly and to slowly implement new procedures. Since my major deals in graphic design I was ecstatic to get started on the new rack card design. I pulled inspiration for the back ground of my design from an advertisement I saw frequently on my phone. I developed the outline of information from previous rack card the college has done. Using new logos from the university’s graphic design team and working with the professors to get up-to-date information I was able to think of a creative design that will work for us.

For the most part my project was pretty straight forward after my design was complete. Some of the problems I ran into however were negative space between the background tiles. The frustrating part about this problem was that the negative space could not be seen until the file was exported as a pdf. So I would have to go back and forth saving and making minuscule changes then back to saving it, only to have to go back again and again. The process was very tedious, but the result was worth it.

This project benefited the College of Science and Engineering Leadership Board. As a result of help the board with its recruitment materials I also was able to help the college of science and engineering at its various recruitment activities, and indirectly help the university as a whole. When my rack card design draws the attention of prospective students, questions are asked and answered and students are able to form relationships with the recruiters at the events. Those relationships and first impressions are what bring people to SUU, and I get to play a role in that.

This project has helped me grow as a designer. It gave me the added experience and practice necessary to improve my graphic design skills. It also helped me branch out and try new approaches to accomplish the same task, those before me have accomplished. It helped me build networking opportunities and relationships that will help me further build a stronger graphic design portfolio for future job interviews. I am extremely thankful for the opportunity I had to play a part in the new re-branding of the leadership board.

“I have found that communication is key in design.”

“It is the designers priority to create a design the represents the feel of the organization while being functional as well.”

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