Designing for the community

Graphic design students create logos for community

Junior+Cassidy+Harris+designs+a+logo+for+a+graphic+design+project.+Cindy+Snells+class+has+created+logos+for+local+businesses.+

Kaitlyn Gordon

Junior Cassidy Harris designs a logo for a graphic design project. Cindy Snell’s class has created logos for local businesses.

Story by Grey Johnson, culture editor

The life cycle of a logo starts out simple in Cindy Snell’s class. Starting with a drawing on a piece of paper, it evolves into a design on the computer, eventually resulting in the creation of a finished product.

Graphic design teacher, Cindy Snell, wants to model her class around real world experiences. For her, the best way to do this is to let students design graphics for real businesses that are looking for logos.

“If I’ve known somebody out in the community that needs a logo, I’ll say, ‘Let my students do it,’” Snell said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do, so they can get real world experience.”

Snell uses the experiences she’s had before she became a teacher to show her students what they learn can be applied in the real world.

“With this being a career and technology course, I want them to be able to go off to college and work in the [graphic design] industry and work toward a graphic design degree,” Snell said. “Or, if they don’t go off to college, maybe they can hold down the position that they can do their own flyers, logos or whatever for the business that they’re working for.”

Preparing students to work on real projects is what the class is all about.

“Several [organizations] need logos, and we are a logo design class,” junior Cassidy Harris said. “People call for Mrs. Snell, then she has us design the logos, and someone gets their logo chosen.”

Along with designing requests from people around the community, graphic design also makes pieces for the school. They can be found in the hallway beside administrative offices, in the pockets of students, and some students may wear them on their shirts.

“We’ve designed tickets for prom and the prom shirts that some people are wearing,” Harris said. “We make the flags for colleges…[and] we give them to the office to stick on the wall.”

After the basics in the first year of digital design, the students of their second year begin to work on different graphics for varying organizations. The class helps students become independent graphic designers.

“That is my goal every year. It’s not my design; it’s their design,” Snell said. “I want to see where they’re going with it, and then I help them structure it to be a finished piece.”