Kent State to Host its First Job Fair Focused Exclusively on Communication, Media and Design Professions

The College of Communication and Information (CCI) is hosting its first job fair exclusively focused on juniors and seniors seeking internships and entry-level jobs in the communication, design and media industries. CCI’s JobExpo2013 will be held on Friday, April 26 at The Ritz-Carlton in Cleveland.

Corporations and organizations from Northeast Ohio that hire advertising, communication, journalism, multimedia, public relations, visual design and professionals from related fields are invited to participate in JobExpo2013 and will have the opportunity to meet CCI students, review their portfolios and conduct interviews. Student resumes and biographies will be available in advance to employers who register for the event.

“We are excited about this job fair for two reasons. First, it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate to prospective employers the very high level of professional education we provide for our students,” said CCI Dean Stan Wearden. “In addition to traditional classroom education, virtually all of our graduating seniors will have had at least one internship and will have worked in student media, in our student-operated marketing communication agency, or in our division of TeleProductions. Second, this is a great service to our graduating seniors and our juniors seeking internships. This gives them the opportunity for real-world feedback that will strengthen their interviewing skills, improve their resumes, and lead to jobs and internships that will help them kick off their professional careers.”

Detailed information:
What: CCI JobExpo2013
Where: The Ritz-Carlton, 1515 W. Third St., Cleveland
When: Friday, April 26
11 a.m. to Noon, Employer Set-up in The Ritz-Carlton Ballroom
Noon to 1 p.m., Lunch for up to two recruiters per employer
1 to 4 p.m., JobExpo2013
Cost: Free

More than 110 students from CCI’s Schools of Communication Studies, Journalism and Mass Communication and Visual Communication Design will participate.

Questions: Contact John Butte, 330-672-8304 at jbutte@kent.edu.

###

In its 75^th year, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University is a leading accredited school with cutting-edge curriculum and facilities. The School’s mission is focused on understanding the media marketplace and media-related careers while providing professional undergraduate and master’s programs within the liberal arts tradition. JMC teaches its students to gather information, to present it clearly and to think critically within a legal and ethical framework. It serves as a resource for professional practitioners, for media consumers and for Kent State University. For more information, visit jmc.kent.edu.

Design for Good: Empowering a Better Future from Africa to Cleveland

 

 

AIGA Cleveland and the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University are jointly hosting an evening event to discuss socially responsible design concepts in our neighborhood and abroad on Thursday, April 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative.

Keynote speaker and Creative Director of Rule 29 Justin Ahrens will share his goal in “making creative matter”(r) through design for good projects. Ahrens will discuss his Africa-based work with Life in Abundance that has challenged his team’s perspective on a designer’s possible impact. Kent State VCD graduate students, who supported recent work for Life in Abundance aimed at access to healthcare, will share their research, their role in the project and the resulting prototypes.

Bringing these concepts home to Cleveland, a second group of VCD graduate students will share similar concepts from their experience collaborating with Neighborhood Family Practice (NFP), a community health center that serves residents of the west side of Cleveland.

Alumni, friends and area professionals are welcomed for a cocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres from 6:30 to 7:30, followed by brief presentations from Ahrens and the VCD graduate students. Registration will open in March and can be found on AIGA Cleveland’s website. The evening will cost $10 for AIGA members and $15 for non-members. Student AIGA members are free and student non-members are $5.

About the Graduate Studio Projects 
Information and quotes from Nicole Gennarelli’s report.

Visual Communication Design Associate Professor Ken Visocky O’Grady and students from his Graduate Studio course researched and developed prototypes to address malaria prevention and sanitation awareness in Kibera, Kenya, and Rumbek, South Sudan during the 2011-2012 academic year. Graduate students in Associate Professor Sanda Katila’s studio course worked with the NFP during the fall 2012 semester and will continue developing the project this spring.

O’Grady organized the project for his class through Ahrens and Rule 29.

“There are many cases of malaria in East Africa, and we wanted to do something to help the people,” said Adina Feigenbaum, one of O’Grady’s graduate students and contributor to the project. “We wanted to create something that would explain to the people in these countries what to look for, how malaria is spread, etc. In Kibera, a slum, there are so many sanitation issues due to lack of drainage, sewers, toilets, trash facilities, etc. The sanitation problem was mostly touched upon by our long-term solutions.”

The class created symbol prototypes and icons that would speak to the intended audience. The prototypes were sent to Kenya with Life in Abundance for testing in the summer of 2012.

“The prototypes sent over included: coloring and activity books for children that explained where malaria comes from and teaches them about symptoms and going to a clinic to get help when they don’t feel well,” Feigenbaum said. “A school game to teach children facts about malaria and sanitation, a pamphlet of information about the causes of malaria, prevention of malaria, and symptoms to watch for and symptom cards to aid as a communication tool within the clinic were also sent over. Icons of different symptoms were created to help patients and physicians better communicate about how they’re feeling and help bypass a language barrier.”

The students had to do research and familiarize themselves with the culture, population and issues the people are facing in those countries, O’Grady said.

Similarly, students working on the Neighborhood Family Practice (NFP) project researched the makeup of their target audience and how to effectively communicate with them. NFP serves a largely Hispanic and generally low-income audience, providing them with unique communication challenges. The project’s objective is to enhance NFP’s relationship with current and future patients and their community to provide an engaging and beneficial healthcare experiences.

After conducting secondary and observational research, as well as primary interviews, the group decided on six areas for target messaging: the waiting room; televisions and tablets on site; a board game and activity book; a referrals and rewards program; social media; and mobile outreach. The project will continue this spring with the design and implementation of the key messages. For more information and story updates, visit VCDGrad.com.

VCD students open resource site

by Meghan Caprez

Two Kent State University Visual Communication Design BFA seniors recently started their own online design resource business called The Warehouse.

The recently engaged couple, Jesse Snyder and Brittany Deighton, opened their website to the public earlier this fall, selling a package of icons Deighton designed. The site also offers two free texture packages for other designers to use as resources for their own designs.

Snyder and Deighton have been designing together since they were in high school, and they noticed there weren’t many resources offered in their price range when they were starting out.

“One of the things we noticed is that a lot of the students early in the VCD program don’t have a lot of access to inexpensive or free things,” Snyder said. “Most of these things cost a lot of money, and there aren’t a lot of resources available. We’re trying to make it inexpensive for people who are just starting out.”

“We wanted to make a place for them to go,” Deighton said. “When we were younger, we didn’t have a lot of people guiding us in regards to resources.”

As the business expanded, Snyder and Deighton implemented a “pay what you want” policy in lieu of set prices.

“For younger students who might not have money, if they want these resources for free, they can do that,” Snyder said. “If they want to pay, they can do that, too.”

Many people have downloaded their texture packages, Snyder said. They are most popular within the Kent community and abroad.

“We’ve gotten a lot of international downloads from places like France and Brazil,” Snyder said. “For some reason, those are the countries we get the most from.”

In the future, the couple hopes to add additional products to the website, such as vector packs and patterns. Upon graduation, they plan to open the website up as an online design studio where they can work on designing for their own clients.

“We’ve just been doing this in our spare time,” Snyder said. “It hasn’t taken too long. We’re pretty efficient. We’re always busy with design, though. We don’t usually take much time off to do anything else.”

“We have no party life,” Deighton joked. “Strictly design.”

Snyder and Deighton were inspired by VCD professor Jillian Coorey and her Graphic Design II course to pursue their own side project.

“Jillian’s class really pushed us to keep us thinking conceptually and out of the box,” Deighton said. “I think that’s how we thought up a lot of the website stuff.”

Snyder encourages other students to take on personal projects to enhance their learning experience. He said the projects are a good way to attract attention to a student’s portfolio.

“It makes you unique if you’re filling a niche that some people haven’t,” Deighton said.

For more information about The Warehouse, visit the website at
http://thewarehousedesign.com/
.

Graduate Seminar uses Innovative Design and Experiential Learning Process in the Development of New Marketing Materials

Homecoming weekend is a time to reflect upon what a campus and a school means to its alumni, current and future students. Using experiential learning and a research-based design processes, Kent State University’s School of Visual Communication Design (VCD) students will use Homecoming weekend to reflect on its graduate programs for the purpose of creating marketing materials to highlight its unique characteristics. Fifteen graduate and senior undergraduate students will be charged with designing flexible and customizable marketing materials to showcase the VCD Master of Arts (MA) and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs. The results of this seminar weekend will address every aspect of the design process – from research, to concept, to production.

VCD Kent State alumni and adjunct faculty members Jason Bacher and Brian Buirge designed the weekend seminar in collaboration with Professor Sanda Katila, VCD Graduate Coordinator. The seminar was developed after primary interviews and a comparative analysis of materials used by competing institutions were conducted. The pair’s design firm, Work, employed creative problem solving techniques to incorporate the school’s vision, mission and ideals in their approach to process and design, while remaining within budget.

Unique to the VCD graduate program is its emphasis on research-based design, exemplified by the thesis requirement in the MFA curriculum. Market research is often used to identify audience perceptions of programs and to determine what information should be communicated for greatest impact, but a key audience input – that of the current student – is often ignored. This experiential graduate seminar will provide an opportunity to incorporate the students’ voice in the design process. The creation of program materials will be a culmination of the school’s ideals in practice. Initial research identified five areas of key messaging that students in the seminar will address in the materials: community, collaboration, leadership, personalization and experience.

Buirge said a challenge of the weekend seminar is the tight time constraints. “We’re asking students to visually communicate the five key ideas with limited resources and without relying on text,” he said. “We want the students to experiment with images, photography and a conceptual development of design work.”

Bacher and Buirge’s team will document the experience to create print and video components explaining the innovative aspects of this design process.

Applications Due for Design-Abroad in Berlin and Prague

Ready to Design-Abroad in Berlin and Prague? The Oct. 1 application deadline is approaching fast! Course details and payment plan options are below for this once-in-a-lifetime study abroad experience. Space is limited, so apply early. Turn in your application and $350 deposit to the VCD Office. Find out even more at Design-Abroad.com.

 

Fees, Budget and Payment Schedule:

Payment Schedule for Program Fee:

• October 1st – Application Fee and Deposit ($350)

• January 18th – Payment Due ($700)

• February 15th - Payment Due ($500)

• March 1st - Final Payment Due ($180)

 

Estimated Program Fee – $1,700

(not including airfare, or 2013 spring tuition. For additional details see the website and click on Budget and Finances.)

 

Estimated Total Cost of Design Abroad  – $3,200.00

(with airfare, spending money, program fee, accommodations and transportation)

 

We’ll Visit:

• Museum of Letters
• The Reichstag
• Holocaust Memorial
• The Bauhaus Museum 
• Prague Castle
• Prague Easter Markets
• Charles Bridge
• Prague Quarter

 

Coursework:

Graphic Design Field Experience focuses on problem-solving methodologies employed in visual communication design, in the context of the cultures of Berlin and Prague. In the design-abroad course, students will apply narrative and storytelling methods, design research, analysis, documentation and implementation in their studio projects. Students will grasp European design perspectives and aesthetics while building a more attractive portfolio and resume that demonstrates international design experience.

 

Students in Graphic Design 2 are charged with a Visual Narrative and Mapping Assignment to document an event or experience through visual narrative using photography and typography.

 

Questions? Contact:

Gretchen Rinnert & Jillian Coorey

Design Abroad, 2013

designabroadvcd@gmail.com

VCD Alumnus Mikey Burton to Speak on Kent Campus Thursday

School of Visual Communication (VCD) Alumnus Mikey Burton, a Designy Illustrator, will speak on Sept. 27, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. in the FirstEnergy Auditorium (340 Franklin Hall, Kent State University) in a visit organized by the AIGA Kent chapter. Students and professionals from the community are welcome to attend the presentation, which is free.

Burton, Master of Arts graduate, has be been recognized with awards from Communication Arts, Graphis, HOW, Print and ADC Young Guns.

Burton is an Ohio native that currently resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Photo credit: Joe Wathen

For more information check out the event Facebook page or the VCD graduate student blog.

Get to Know Your Academic Advisors

By: Meghan Caprez

I was still in high school when I first met my academic advisor. My mother insisted on dragging me into the JMC advising office one Wednesday morning Spring 2011 because she’d heard about the old “Walk-In Wednesday” policy. I’d tried to explain to her that it only applied to kids who were actually in college, but she insisted it was for anybody.

They were surprised to hear we were there, demanding to meet with an advisor, especially since I hadn’t even committed to go to Kent State yet. Nevertheless, they sent Amy Wilkins out to talk to us. I sat mortified in the corner while my mom asked question after question. I thought I’d never live it down.

When I did commit to Kent State and attended Destination Kent State, Amy was the advisor who helped me schedule for my classes. Much to my horror, she remembered me because I came in with my mom earlier that year. I think she must have known how embarrassed I was about being the “kid who came in with mommy,” so she joked about it with me to put me at ease. To this day, she still asks me how my mom is doing, and all I can do is smile and roll my eyes at the memory.

There tends to be a malevolent rumor that runs around college campuses concerning advisors. A lot of people don’t trust in the advice they are given in regards to classes and scheduling because they’ve heard through the grapevine about an advisor who gave incorrect information. Those people are missing out on an incredibly valuable resource.

The cool thing about CCI advising is that it’s decentralized. Instead of everyone in the college going to a handful of advisors who know a little bit about each major, students turn to advisors located directly in their school with knowledge about their specific programs. For example, Amy Wilkens is an advisor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her office is in Franklin Hall, and she knows about every single one of the JMC majors and minors. If I was a VCD student, I would go see Vince Giles in the Art building. If I was a COMM student, I would go see Lorie Hopp in Taylor Hall.

After working with them all summer during Destination Kent State, I can honestly say CCI advisors are the coolest advisors on campus. Who else would lip sync and play air guitar to “Eye of the Tiger” in front a bunch of incoming freshmen and their parents? Who else would spend a half hour with a student just scrolling through and printing out Photoshopped images of Coney from Collegefest 2012? They really care about connecting with the students.

Make sure you take advantage of the services they provide! Schedule an advising appointment today!

Inspire Camp Concludes With Reception

Story and Photos by: Emily Horne

Inspire Camp Follow-Up

After five days of camp, Inspire: A Summer Creative Camp for High School Students concluded with a parent and camper reception Friday, July 27 from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. The parents and campers gathered to mingle and view the artifacts created throughout the week.

A student works on a stop motion animation project.

A total of 23 high school students from Ohio and Pennsylvania took part in Inspire. They were exposed to design, photography, and illustration within a higher education setting. The students were also given the opportunity to build friendships with other creative students in the region.

Co-directors Jillian Coorey and Gretchen Rinnert developed the camp for students who have completed their freshman year of high school, are between the ages of 14 and 19, and have an interest in design, photography, illustration, and creative thinking.

Rinnert said Inspire was very successful. “The students produced various design artifacts. They developed portfolio work that can help them as they enter a design program,” Rinnert said. She continued to say that “parents and campers were delighted by the work and many expressed their excitement and appreciation.”

Inspire is an annual event and will take place again next summer. To stay up-to-date on next year’s camp, regularly check the website: http://www.inspirecamp.com.

Students and parents view work from throughout the week at the reception on Friday.

VCD Professor Honored by International Organization

By: Emily Horne

David Middleton, Associate Professor in Kent State University’s (KSU) School of Visual Communication Design (VCD) is the recipient of the 2012 Distinguished Member Award from SEGD, the Society of Environmental Graphic Design. This was awarded during the SEGD Annual Conference at the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge.

This award honors Middleton for his “outstanding volunteer efforts while significantly contributing to the direction, growth, and excellence of SEGD programs” and recognizes his leadership and “many contributions to the board’s work, as well as many contributions to SEGD’s efforts in EGD education and the establishment of educational programs.”

About six years ago, Middleton was invited to be on the board for SEGD, a small international organization with about 2,000 members in professions such as graphic design, architecture, interior design, and urban planning. Middleton said the group houses many “high-level” people. To Middleton, SEGD is “really about communication and place.”

Over the last ten years, Middleton has made a number of significant contributions to SEGD through his teaching, volunteer work, and board presence. With a high student interest in the organization and its focus, Middleton taught a course for three years in which he brought in professionals as guest lecturers. This interdisciplinary course, with work both in person and through videoconference also included architecture students from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and real estate M.B.A. students from DePaul University.

Throughout those three years, he received grant funding to teach the course and immerse the students in significant learning opportunities. Many of Middleton’s students have won awards for their outstanding work and have been published in two books. He said VCD is “really recognized in the field as one of the top schools in this area.”

Almost two years ago, Middleton took a sabbatical in which he began the development of a peer-reviewed journal called Communication and Place. Produced by SEGD, Middleton is the editor. His mission in creating this journal is to share meaningful information that professionals can use. Launching this summer, Middleton hopes this journal will be an opportunity to get graduate students involved as editorial assistants.

Middleton has also contributed to SEGD as a board member. He helped to develop a new position – the Education Director. This position is in charge of managing an interrelationship between all of the roughly 25 academic schools within the organization. This position oversees segdDESIGN, The International Journal of Environmental Graphic Design, and helps to manage the summer conference. In addition, Middleton helped to develop the Education Summit held once a year. This year, the one-day annual conference took place on June 7 in Brooklyn, NY.

Middleton has already been recognized from SEGD in the past for his meaningful contributions. A few years ago he won the “Angel” award for the educational work he has done. Being awarded the Distinguished Member Award is an honor awarded by the board that cannot go to a board member.

“For me it’s a real honor to get this award,” Middleton said, “It’s sort of a humbling thing.” He went on to say that he left the board and received the award the first year.

Currently, Middleton teaches a variety of senior and graduate-level VCD courses and still serves on the academic advisory board for SEGD education. In addition, he is the resident faculty member for the SEGD-Kent Summer Program, now in its eighth year. Typically a two-week program for advanced design students and young professionals, this program features high-level professional designers and researchers.

Middleton hopes to develop an exhibition design course for next year and plans to continue to push educational programs and research. He believes these opportunities show “the reach of college and the range of what visual communication really is.”

VCD Grad Continues Senior Project After Graduation

By: Emily Horne

Renee Volchko, a December 2011 B.F.A. graduate from Kent State University’s  School of Visual Communication Design (VCD) is continuing her senior project, even after graduation. Volchko’s 2-D concentration with a minor in Web design and programming has gone to good use as she continues to tweak her project for use by the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring organization.

Volchko’s final project consists of three “ad spots” or roughly 30-second videos. In order to create these videos, she interviewed many different kids. From her 25-30 minutes of footage from each kid, she narrowed it down to about 30 seconds for each video.

She says she chose to work with Big Brothers Big Sisters because family has always been important to her, as she has a sister eight years her junior. “I think that everyone deserves to have a sibling relationship,” she said. She also said she believes there is something special about having someone like that in your life.

One of Volchko’s biggest challenges with completing this project was adhering to a strict schedule. Between utilizing a green screen, rendering, animating, filming, setting up lights, and making sure each of the small technicalities were in place, it was a challenge to balance that with executing an overall message to her chosen audience.

“It was such an accomplishment, not only for me to get it done, but to get it done with success,” she said. She began thinking about this project in May 2011 and began executing it in October. She says there was “a lot of thinking and planning” before she began tackling the actual project.

After contacting the Big Brothers Big Sisters headquarters in Philadelphia to show the executives her project, she got in contact with the art director. The organization is now in the process of integrating its logo and an existing slogan into the project so it can be viewed by the public. Volchko said she hopes Big Brothers Big Sisters will use the spots as viral videos or ads on its Youtube channel and website.

“Completing this project gave me a little bit more confidence in my abilities,” Volchko said. She went on to say that receiving responses and praise from people who have viewed her work is a great reward.

A self-proclaimed driven and inspired designer, Volchko said she finds inspiration very easily and very quickly. “Graphic design has been my way to communicate with people,” she said “art is a language everybody speaks.” Volchko said that she has her heart set on “making something happen someday.”

Volchko recently coded and launched a new personal website to showcase her work. View it at www.hellorenee.com.