March 18, 2022
Collaborating on a new design for Shawnee State University’s annual Celebration of Scholarship (COS) conference, Casey Linder and Kristina Workman worked under the guidance of Matt Cram, the Department Chair of Fine, Digital, & Performing Arts at SSU. Together, the students brainstormed ideas and selected key words of their own before coming together to create the design.
“In the beginning stages, we created our own separate lists of key words and symbols that represent Celebration of Scholarship along with the ideas and information given to us concerning it,” said Linder.
As the two students started considering the themes and symbols they were provided with, the duo mostly considered Greek symbols for education.
“We played around with designs for fire, torches, fountains, columns, and more until we decided on the current design,” said Linder. “From there, we played around with different color schemes, fonts, and text placements until we felt happy with the logo and perfected it.”
When looking back on the design process, Linder recalls her favorite part about the design experience was being able to work in a group environment to create her ideas.
“My favorite part of the process had to be getting in the room with Professor Cram and Kristina and just bouncing ideas off of one another and brainstorming,” she said. “It was nice to be able to have others to work with and work in a team setting as we did.”
Both students of the SSU Graphic Design program, the project gave an opportunity to focus on design as a process and processing critical thinking to give form to content. Being able to create something to be used by the university for COS was important to Linder.
“I was very excited to be able to create something for the school,” she said. “I am grateful that I could be a part of creating the logo and for the experience it provided.”
This year’s Shawnee State University Celebration of Scholarship conference will be held in a hybrid format the week of April 4, 2022. For more information about the conference, visit shawnee.edu/cos.