Top designer
Tunyarat Niransitirat,
a graphics design and photography student, designed the poster that will be
used in conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr. Day Commemoration activities
at University Park.
Photo:
Greg Grieco
By Karen Trimbath
Public
Information
Well, let's see. That one is "clever, but unrelated to the theme."
Hmmmm. This one appears "dreamlike, but a little hard to discern."
These comments were recently overheard as five judges tried to select a poster for the January 2000 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Commemoration activities out of the 20 submitted by graphics design students enrolled in the "Time and Sequence" course taught by Lanny Sommese, professor of art.
"We're looking for three things -- clarity, a design that gets the message across and creativity," said Bob Leonard, professor of theatre arts and committee member who gave the assignment to the design students in the course.
Leonard calls the assignment a professional audition, in which students must be prepared to work with the clients' needs -- in this case, the committee seeks an eye-catching poster that relates to the theme and can be printed in several sizes.
The judges, also members of the commemoration committee, had to keep in mind that the final poster would be printed in a large format, on a small pamphlet, and on buttons for the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration activities slated for Jan. 15-18 (see the Oct. 21 issue of Intercom for a listing of events). Most of the planned activities will fall under the theme "Many Voices, One Dream."
The committee members walked around the entries placed on black velvet at the Playhouse Theatre, pointing out what they liked and didn't like about each one. Ultimately, they picked two and let the full committee vote -- after asking the artists to make alterations.
One of the final entries, by Tunyarat Niransitirat, a graphics design and photography major, included a black-and-white photo of King superimposed on a wide-angle shot of activists during the 1963 March on Washington. The judges found the design energetic, but wanted the theme to be more prominent.
The other entry, by Wendy Smith, a marketing major, was lauded for its simple, colorful design of two hands, one white and one black, placed together to resemble a bird in flight. The judges wanted background detail modified.
Both Niransitirat and Smith quickly made the changes before the committee reconvened.
The winner? Tunyarat Niransitirat, a native of Thailand whose first name, appropriately enough, means "Art" in Thai. She said that she spent nearly five hours working on the poster design -- work that included scanning in photos of King and the marchers and combining the images in Adobe Photoshop, and her work is not yet done.
According to Niransitirat, this assignment has been a great learning experience.
"I learned how to use Photoshop more. Now I have to learn how to deal with a printer, which is a new skill for me," she said. "This project will help me with my future career as a graphics designer."