BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

Typically 80% of our students participate in design internships or  part-time design positions, providing valuable real-world experience before graduation. Almost all of the internships are paid — a welcome supplement to a student’s income that helps with their undergraduate expenses. Many students have multiple internship experiences; the average number of semesters in an internship is currently more than five.

 

Our current graphic design majors have worked as interns at:

• Access Ventures

• AdHawks

• Brown-Forman Corporation

• Delphi Center for Teaching & Learning

• Doe-Anderson

• GE Appliances / Chibo

• Greater Louisville Inc.

• Kentucky Kingdom

• Kidscommons Children's Museum

• Humana XC (Experience Center)

• Uduni

• UofL Campus Housing

• UofL Cardinal Card office

• UofL Division of Infectious Diseases

• UofL DTC-NSA Cybersecurity Grant

• UofL Integrated Design and Development

• UofL Office of Admissions

• UofL Office of Communication and Marketing

• UofL School of Medicine

• UofL Student Government Association

• Warp World Inc.

Most years, Portfolio students visit different design environments. This year, our field trips were virtual. But students still got a sense of a variety of work environments — from a large full-service agency with a broad spectrum of in-house capabilities, to a smaller design and advertising agency, to an in-house creative group.

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Our portfolio students "visited"

• Fieldtrip — Andrew Spalding, Amy Chea, and Jane Pfeiffer

• The Power Agency — Glenn Goodman and Jessica Hartnettt

• Kindred Healthcare — Jason Laughlin, Beth Blackford, Emily Musterman, Kendall Herdelin, Kate Biggs, Rosie Felfe, and Vinnie McCullough.

 

Our Design for Public Issues (D4PI) students participated in a virtual workshop on collaborative design with a team from the Humana XC (Experience Center). Humana has held a workshop with the D4PI students for the past five years, giving our students some new methods for working together to develop creative solutions.

This year, we paired every senior with an alumni mentor during their Portfolio semester. Mentors met with students virtually to give them feedback on their work and share their insights and experiences from their journey from design student to design professional.

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A big thank you to:

• Chris Arrowood, 2010, Senior Manager Growth Design, LinkedIn

• Cait Bender, 2018, Graphic Designer, INgrid Design

• Carolina Caicedo, 2015, Graphic Designer, Interfaith Youth Core

• Amy (Woods) Chea, 2016, Senior Art Director, Fieldtrip

• Amber (Kleitz) Cox, 2018, Senior UX Designer, Humana

• Gwen Galeza, 2017, Graphic Designer, Kenmark Eyewear

• Kendall Herdelin, 2013, Graphic Designer, Kindred Healthcare

• Patrick Hill, 2012, Senior UI Designer, Generation Tux

• Jason Howlett, 2004, Digital Designer, Humana

• Katie Kuhens, 2013, Senior User Experience Designer, The Home Depot

• Li Lamorena, 2019, User Experience Designer, American Express

• Amber Marsden, 2018, Graphic Designer, C2 Strategic Communications

• Carrie (Donovan) Scufari, 2016, Creative Development Designer, Humana

• Bobby Shirley, 2005, Senior Manager Instructional Design, Texas Roadhouse

• Rachel Suding, 2018, Graphic Designer, Miami Marlins

• Jessica Suhr, 2010, Owner & Creative Director, Perennial Creative

• Ashley Trommler, 2011, Creative Director, VIA Studio

• Brad Vetter*, Designer & Letterpress Printer, Brad Vetter Studio (*Brad’s not an alum but he could be an honorary alum with all the interaction he’s had with our program)

• Kyle Vice, 2004, Digital Design Director, Philips

Each year, our BFA students work on design teams with community non-profits for an entire semester in the Design for Public Issues class. They meet with their non-profit client to understand more about their organization and its mission and goals. Then tthey create a broad scope of visual communications materials with a consistent visual identity for the non-profit to carry forward. 

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The class of 2021 students worked with these four non-profits:

• Alley Cat Advocates

• Bunbury Theatre

• Dreams with Wings

• The Lighthouse Academy

In 2020-21, many professionals share their expertise with our students.

• Chris Arrowood, Senior Manager, LinkedIn — "Rock your LinkedIn Profile", Portfolio class

• Courtney Baron, Director, Bridwell Art Library — "Evaluating Information and Sources" for Typography I; "Inspiration from Bridwell's Artist Book Collection" for Book Forms; "Visual Cultural Research" for Packaging

• Li Lamorena, User Experience Designer, American Express — "Post-College Life" for Portfolio class

• Meena Khalili, Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina — "Putting your best foot (face) forward in virtual interviews" for Portfolio class

• Blythe (Magnuson) Untch, packaging designer, Kaleidoscope — "Designing Packaging — some case studies"

• Kyle Vice, Digital Design Director, Philips — "User Personas" for Packaging class

• Karen Weaver, Spec Representative, Athens Papers — "Paper Options for Creative Covers" for Typography II

• Matt Zoeller, Associate Creative Director, Mightily — "Stylescapes" for Design for Public Issues.

Two events significantly changed our paradigm in 2020 — the global pandemic and the racial justice issues brought into stark focus by the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

 

Part of the response of UofL's graphic design program was to reach out to design programs across the state — EKU, Murray, NKU, UK, and WKU — to work collaboratively developing a lecture series for students in all our programs could hear from more diverse voices in the design field.

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This year's focus was "Black Voices in Design." Through this collaborative effort, students (and the larger community) have had the opportunity to hear from:

• Britt Davis, Senior Designer for the Atlanta Falcons

• Kaleena Sales, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Tennessee State University

• Maurice "Mo" Woods, Executive Director and Founder of the Inneract Project (IP) as well as Principal Designer at Microsoft.

• Carahna Magwood, Design Director for The White House,

• Andrea Pippins, author and illustrator.

 

We had additional support for this series from AIGA chapters in Cincinnati, Louisville, and Nashville.