Oak Harbor graphic design class giving students real world experience

 
Elly Gilbert, an art instructor at Oak Harbor High School, introduced a new graphics design class this year, and it has served as a portal for students to learn about what paths they could take once they venture into the real world.
       
“As an art educator, I’m trying to expose my students to as many career paths as possible,” Gilbert said. “And with graphics design we're not looking strictly at being graphic designers. We're looking at architecture. We're looking at engineering. We're looking at all sorts of various careers that use the aspect of art within that career in some way.
       
“A lot of times people just think art is art (and that) we (just) do paintings and drawings. There's a lot more to our careers than just painting and drawing. Students take the class because they either are interested in graphics design, or they just want to explore more what working on a computer is like and what we have to offer for them.”
       
The students have been, or will be getting, experience in Adobe Creative Suite programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.
       
Last semester, the students designed Christmas cards in Photoshop and delivered them to the Riverview nursing home, where they mingled with the residents and gave each of them a Christmas card as part of a field trip.
       
“It was kind of nice to have that real world experience, getting to visit with the residents,” Gilbert said. “Some of them even commented how they appreciated it so much because they don't often get visitors. So that was nice.”
       
Andrew Swartzlander, an Oak Harbor native and BGSU student, spoke to the class a month ago. He gave the students the perspective of a student who is currently working toward a degree in the field and described what is necessary to successfully apply for the graphic design program.
       
Another speaker was Kennedy Hines, who designs crochet tutorials and manages a website, which Gilbert said relates to her class in that Hines has to set up her work to be appealing to her clientele and make it eye-catching and easy to understand.
       
“She showed the students her portfolio, what she had to do to prepare and what her customers and clientele are looking for from that end of things,” Gilbert said. “I think it was really beneficial for them because sometimes you don’t think about the importance of these things, such as color selection, font selection or sticking with a theme throughout the whole project at hand.”
       
With this being her first year teaching the class, Gilbert is also a student of sorts, taking notes during each presentation in order to find ways to improve the class in the future or come up with new ideas.
       
Gilbert’s class even designed the tickets for prom this year, and they have created a Google form to provide other design services within the school district. In the future, she plans on pushing it out to the community.
       
“It’s kind of like an interview they would give a client, so they're knowledgeable about deadlines, due dates, questions you should be asking the client in the future, and that sort of thing,” Gilbert said.
       
More recently, each student had to create their own brand. They are doing their own version of Shark Tank, creating a brand, a color scheme, a style, etc.
       
“They had to do it all, and then they had to create a product for that brand,” Gilbert said. “Last week, they had to practice selling it to me as if it were like a Shark Tank scenario.”
       
All of this is part of giving students pathways into as many potential careers as possible.
       
“We like to talk intelligently about the topic, use our art terms, our elements of art, our principles of design, and all that fun stuff,” Gilbert said. “I'm really trying to make sure that our students are prepared for the real world and know what they need to be ready for.”
       
“Right now, I have a few students who specifically want to go into graphic design and then I have a few students who have a passion for working on the computer and just playing with different programs on the computer. So (this class is) kind of opening their eyes to possibilities because a lot of times high school students aren't sure of what they want to do in the future.”