By Chelsie Derman
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Senior graphic design majors celebrate their four years at the College with their professional senior BFA graphic design exhibit, “Zooming Out.” The opening reception took place April 2 from 6-8 p.m. in the College Art Gallery and the exhibit will run until April 10.
The graphic design exhibit featured works by all of the senior graphic design majors: Jordana Bernard, Danielle Britton, Katie Cocca, Alexandra Del Duca, Megan Dunn, Hadassah Green, Allison Kemp, Alexandra Long, Chris Marcamtonio, Steven Quinto, Tyler Rodriguez, Tyler Torre, Katie Walters and Maria Yue.
Unique, creative designs were all over the place — on soda cans, surf boards, cards, t-shirts, bottles, posters, magazine covers and apps, among others.
“I love the diversity between everybody’s pieces, and not ‘everything is so concrete and the same,’ so I like that,” said Caitlin Gethins, a junior graphic design major.
Gethins came to the exhibit to support her fellow graphic design majors.
“It’s fun seeing your friend’s work on display and how far they’ve come,” Grethin said.
Many of the graphic design majors chose to include posters in their exhibits that display a different message in three or four ways.
One of the senior graphic design students, Katie Cocca, chose to create posters on burnout. The three posters hanging up on the wall were all similar yet different.
One poster read “burnout creeps up on you” with an image of a spider crawling on a book. Another poster had a girl’s head with a lightbulb hovering over it, and the words “burnout can fry your brain” printed on the top. The last poster said “burnout can jam your mind,” which featured wheels and a broken pencil.
“The series of posters I created is supposed to catch your attention,” Cocca said. “It aims to bring awareness to the fact that burnout is damaging and abnormal. That's why I used imagery that evoked anxiety or depicted broken objects. The lightbulb, books, and the pencil connect the posters to the idea of academia.”
Cocca planned her design idea with word maps.
“I tried to create lists of objects and phrases I associate with learning,” Cocca said. “Then I moved to loose sketching to play with the elements I had brainstormed. Finally, I did image research to collect relevant photos and brought them into Photoshop for editing.”
Another senior graphic design student, Katie Walters, was inspired by 1970s and ‘60s design.
“I tried to work on different projects that were seen as masculine products and try to push them to, not even feminine, but more to gender-neutral,” Walters said. “For my capstone, I made a clothing brand that was gender-neutral, so that was the focus of most of my work throughout my four years.”
However, Walters also dabbled in creating a surfboard design, which was featured at the exhibit.
Walters said the most fun part about studying graphic design at the College was the design process and the research.
“You come across stuff you didn’t know before and you get inspired by other artists,” Walters said. “I think that’s the best part.”
Senior graphic design major Hadassah Green loved the part about creating and designing apps.
Every student had their own mini screen sitting by the rest of the work. For Green, she created an interactive and easy-to-use PAWS app. Unfortunately, because of the College’s budget constraints, Green’s app could not go live and thus is not downloadable by students.
“I created an app and actually re-designed the PAWS system that kids use at TCNJ based on complaints that’s been said about PAWS and how the system isn’t user friendly,” Green said. “I created it into an app to make it more accessible because not everybody, if you think about it, has access to a computer, but everyone has a phone. So I made it easier.”
Green’s PAWS app has features such as finding your classes, signing up for classes, seeing your schedule, generating your academic process and having access to grades.
One cool feature Green pointed out was that, with her app, you can switch it back to units from credits. Since Green transferred to the College her sophomore year, it took a bit of time to get accustomed to the units.
“For those, especially me, I came in with my credits scrambled and I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know what courses to go into,” Green said.
In her graphic design classes, Green learned a lot about User Interface, where you re-design apps.
Overall, the exhibit’s open reception had buzzed with energy, full of senior graphic design majors, as well as friends and family, strolling around the exhibition.
“I know a bunch of these people so it’s great to see all of their work and how far they’ve come and how all of their work is so different but each section of it all works together,” said Annalise Jacobs, a junior graphic design major. “They’re all so aesthetically joined.”
