This semester’s Intro to Graphic Design class has taken up a project that they have never done before. In collaboration with the powerlifting team, the students will have the chance to design this year’s powerlifting shirts and hoodies. Students were given the creative freedom to put the design together as they choose, but also had a few guidelines and requirements to include.
“He (Mr. Raybourn) wanted something a little different,” Graphic Design Instructor Mr. Michael Moore said. “He wanted something more biker, rocker. He wanted a full skull with the weights sitting behind it.”
Past designs include a gray hoodie with “Gretna Power” and a Barbell on the front in 2018 and a white hoodie with a deadlifting dragon on the front in 2019. Unlike prior years, the new design is more of a biker look. Including a dragon skull and barbells in a skull and crossbones format.
Within the class, there are 15 students meaning 15 possible designs will be created in total for the powerlifting team to choose from. After learning how to use a new program, the class was given a week to complete the project.
“He wanted it at the end of November,” Mr. Moore said. “We were a little late getting it to him because of trying to get kids to understand illustrator, so we had to learn that first.”
The class spent about a week learning how to use Adobe Illustrator. Given the program is more freehand drawing based than photoshop based, some students picked up the software faster than others.
“I had four or five that I turned into him out of the 15 or so kids,” Mr. Moore said. “I turned in only about a third of that, that would be worth looking at.”
As the class continues to learn and develop with the software, projects may improve. Despite the number of designs submitted to the powerlifting team, Intro to Graphic Design may do similar projects in the future.
“If people come to us, it depends on who I have in the class,” Mr. Moore said. “I had a few kids that were interested in it (the project) and kinda listened to the instructions and there’s a bunch of kids that didn’t listen to the instructions, didn’t do the research on what we were trying to do.”
The opportunity for the class to design the team’s t-shirts and hoodies this year benefited both the students and the team. The team has a new design and the class has further developed their skills on Adobe Illustrator.