For students enrolled in Design 251 at Ohio State, carving pumpkins is more than an annual tradition — it’s educational.

Nearly 60 students from the course’s three sections sat on the floor in room 365 of Hopkins Hall carving pumpkins for the design school’s annual project Friday.

Design 251 is a basic design course required for second-year design students that includes industrial, visual communication and interior design.

The pumpkin-carving project began five years ago. Associate design professor Carolina Gill had worked on a similar project at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Tony Reynaldo, an assistant design professor, wanted to organize a similar project for OSU students.

“I was flipping through some of (Gill’s) stuff and I was like, ‘Why are we not doing that here?’ We took a chance, bought a bunch of candles, and we threw this project out at the students and they loved it. It was a hit,” Reynaldo said.

Students completed the project between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Though they were required to stay only during their regularly scheduled three-hour studio time, most students took four to six hours, Reynaldo said.

“They all can work together in the room. We basically tear the whole studio apart, get all the desks and everything out and create a gigantic floor space so it’s more open.” Reynaldo said. “It actually gets them to be like kids again.”

The project was a continuation of the fundamental design principles the students were studying in class.

The students were “working with what would be considered gray scale — black, white and grays — but in this case, they have to ‘think in pumpkin,'” Reynaldo said. Therefore, the color palate was vibrant orange, orange, yellow and red.

“They have to really think in reverse because when you light a pumpkin, you’re backlighting it just like a computer monitor,” Reynaldo said. “So you have to think about where those transparent spaces are going to be in terms of a light source.”

To show white, students created a hole in the pumpkin to display pure candlelight. To show black, they left the pumpkin’s skin unscathed. To create grays, students etched into the pumpkin.

Each student was required to choose a famous figure’s face so the carvings would be recognizable.

Reynaldo said Lady Gaga, Jon Stewart and Johnny Cash were popular figures.

Students used a technique called “pouncing” to transfer their images onto the pumpkins, using pushpins to trace tiny holes through the paper image and onto the pumpkin’s surface.

Students had free reign over tools they could use to carve their pumpkins.

“The X-Acto knife is handy because it cuts through pumpkin the best,” Reynaldo said. “Another tool that’s really useful is a linoleum cutter. Wood-carving tools are great because they’re forgiving and they’re accurate.”

Lonie Smith, a second-year in industrial design, said he planned to use an electric, handheld Dremel tool to carve Will Smith’s face into his pumpkin.

“It’s like the old Japanese method of tattooing versus a tattoo gun,” he said.

Reynaldo said many students were nervous about making the first cut.

“It’s really about their abilities to visualize the pumpkin before it’s finished and comfortably attack,” he said.

Students tracked their pumpkins’ progress by lighting them up with candles in a dark room.

“The one rule with the pumpkins that you have to always be cognizant of is you can always take more off, but you can never put it back on,” Reynaldo said.

Reynaldo said the pumpkins look amazing when they’re lit but terrible during the carving process.

“The whole time you think, ‘Wow, this looks awful,'” Reynaldo said. “Then you stick a candle in it and the glowing light … it just changes the whole pumpkin.”

Reynaldo said students from different disciplines have created exquisite pumpkins.

“There’s strong communication between all of the majors, and that’s what I like,” said Kim Gombita, a second-year in visual communication design.

Gombita and her fellow design classmates — Sara Olson, a second-year in visual communication design, and Megan VanFossen and Alyssa Martin, both second-years in industrial design — all got a kick out of the project.

“It’s a much more playful, childlike project,” Reynaldo said. “And hopefully it triggers memories of them being kids.”