Research for a class project can often seem unbearable, but is it ever sexy? For Michael Lai, a student in advertising and graphic design at the Columbus College of Art and Design, it has been both.
Lai found himself faced with the task of designing a gift certificate package for Victoria’s Secret, which this past year lent its name and logo to groups of CCAD students training to be the next generation of Madison Avenue big shots. But in order to better understanding of the product his group was trying to package, a trip to the Easton branch of the lingerie chain was required.
“It was pretty awkward going in there, hanging out, looking at the merchandise,” Lai said with an ornery grin.
But such are the sacrifices art students must make, and at the end of a long year spent with visions of garter belts dancing in his head, Lai scored a major coup by having his Victoria’s Secret package showcased in CCAD’s Annual Student Exhibition. The show, whose pieces represent the best works created at CCAD during the past year, will run until July 27 at the Canzanni Center and elsewhere throughout campus.
Lai has greatly enjoyed participating in the event, in which nearly every medium studied at CCAD is represented.
“I see my department stuff pretty often, but it really amazes me what other students are capable of,” he said as he surveyed the first floor gallery at the Canzanni Center, taking note of a kitschy miniature ship filled with small Viking sculptures.
Each piece in the exhibit has been selected by faculty, with the exception of the best of the senior thesis projects, which were selected based on input from both faculty and students. A collection of works from CCAD’s “freshman foundation” program – a rigorous first-year series of courses taken by students prior to declaring a major – is also on display.
The show has been a rite of passage for CCAD students for the past 124 years, and spokeswoman Lacey Luce said it continues to improve with each incarnation.
“This year we’re utilizing more of the campus and making sure all of the majors are represented in the main gallery,” she said. “It’s a more balanced show.”
The programs represented include fine arts, illustration, media studies and fashion, graphic, industrial and interior design.
Some of the most interesting use of media is represented by projects that defy categorization, including a piece by David Hartke that ornaments a mobile dolly with crude bumper stickers, bright red flames and a speaker system that blares ominous noises when the presence of museum patrons is detected by a motion sensor.
While Luce denied that there were any overriding thematic or aesthetic trends with this year’s crop of projects, it’s obvious that world events have been on the minds of CCAD students over the past couple of years. One illustration features George W. Bush, in a mock-Renaissance pose, holding an infant Osama Bin Laden at his breast. Another depicts a two-headed, fire-breathing Ari Fleisher – Bush’s press secretary – behind his White House podium.
One could easily imagine such illustrations making it on to the pages of a weekly newsmagazine, but where does the rest of the student body stand as it prepares for a career in art? Summer is an anxious time for graduating college seniors everywhere, but no more so than with students preparing to enter this notoriously competitive field. Luce admits there are challenges students will face, but believes art schools like CCAD have gotten a bum rap when it comes to career preparation.
“Certainly, to be a studio artist, like any other area of the arts, is very competitive,” she said. “But the opportunities are out there. Everything around us is driven by designers. So I think it’s a misconception that those who come to art school will never get a job.”
According to Lai, the annual student exhibition and the CCAD experience in general have given him the tools required to respond to the artistic and economic challenges that lie before him in his profession.
“With clients, you can never predict what they’re going to base their opinions on,” he said. “Talking with a lot of the teachers, seeing the work that’s being done here, one of the great things this school does is that it prepares us to be creative in any field.”
