Nice work, everyone.

We're almost there!

By tomorrow, you'll have turned in all of your portfolios, your brand books, your Flash projects, your Art History papers. Your final exams will be over. And it will be SUMMER!

Nice work, everyone! You worked hard this year, and it paid off.

I wanted to wrap up my time with FoGD with a post to remind us all of how far we've come as a department and as a community.

 

(Note: All of these photos were shamelessly stolen from Kate Bingaman-Burt, Alex Boyd, Aaron Rayburn and maybe you.)

In Spring of 2008, our student group had five regular members. The Green Rooms were piles of broken furniture and paper scraps. There was little student work in the hallways and I was a bummed out sophomore SO excited to get over the review and onto the good stuff. 

Lis Charman helped me, Belin Liu and Amanda Benson get funding from Bill LePore, the chair of the Art Department, to transform those rooms into something useful. Something good. Something to facilitate interaction. Engagement. Community. 

Kate Bingaman-Burt and Matt Livengood arrived on the scene, and for three days we worked our butts off to transform the Green Room into the headquarters for community that it is today.

Starting Fall term 2008 our student group EXPLODED. We went from less than ten regular members to more than 100 participating students. HECK YEAH! We petitioned the SFC for a budget and succeeded! Bam!

We grew our leadership. Alex Boyd, Sarah Baugh and Hans van de Bruggen were elected by their peers to lead the way! (I just sort of stuck around and slapped on an official title.)

Show & Tell, our weekly Skype series, began with loads of hard work from Kate. She beamed her friends and acquaintances in from across the country to give us a taste of the "real" design world. Lots of us developed some serious design crushes.

We visited countless Portland studios and developed even more intense design crushes. The Portland creative scene really opened their arms to us, welcoming us into their spaces and stopping into PSU to lecture as part of Show & Tell. We were hosted by Lark Press, Pinball Publishing, Em Space, Office PDX, Kamp Grizzley, Nemo Design, Amy Ruppel, and lots more kind, creative people.

The rad dudes from the Grass Hut came by in February 2009 for an Official Lecture about commercial and fine art, feast and famine employment, collaboration, handmade and digital design and a dumptruckload more.

In July of 2009 HOW Magazine declared PSU a HOT Design Department to keep your eyes on. WHAT? Amazing.

We tabled at the Portland Zine Symposium, sharing student publications with the independent publishing scene here in Portland and raising money to support more exciting programming.

We held a competition to send three students to the 2009 AIGA MAKE+THINK Conference in Memphis, Tennessee. Jasmine Silver, Alex Boyd and I tagged along with Kate as she gave a showstopping speech to a roomful of wide-eyed design students. The conference opened our eyes and broadened our horizons. (To get cliché about it.) We learned lots of stuff. I shook Stefan Sagmeister's hand. Alex bought him a Coca Cola at the Design Observer party. We met Kate's students from Mississippi. We made friends.

We curated, installed and opened our first ever Graphic Design Student Group Show, LOVE WHAT YOU DO. It was a SMASHING success! More than twenty-five students took part, contributing class projects and personal work. Frank Chimero kindly flew himself in to give an inspiring lecture to a packed house of students and community members on the topic of loving what you do. The poster that Michael Eaton and I made was plastered all over the internet, Swiss Miss posted it (insane!) and blew up my web traffic to levels I can only pray I'll get to again.

In Winter of 2010, Jasmine Silver put together a collaborative zine featuring the work of 14 students. She then traded the publication to a group of awesome GD kids in Arlington, Texas who had found us on the internet and wanted to collaborate.

This year we also added a new stipened position and welcomed Ben Vickery to the FoGD officers board as the MEDIA MAGICIAN! Just kidding, his actual title is something more boring than that. Ben blew open our Twitter doors, maintained this blog, and made a Tumblr of edited Show & Tell lectures.

2010 was the year of workshops. Students stepped up to help each other out, share skills and further the increasingly collaborative and helpful environment in the Annex. Heather Noddings, Nate Garvison, Laura Jones, Olivia Tabert and Hans van de Bruggen taught workshops on CSS/HTML, InDesign and Bookbinding. We also went to Em Space, a local letterpress shop, and typeset a collaborative wood type poster that's a FoGD manifesto of sorts.

Last month we organized and hosted our first annual Friends of Graphic Design gala. Be Honest was an astonishing success.

We surprised even ourselves. Fifty students showcased their portfolios to what felt like Portland's entire design community. We received amazing advice. (Our minds were blown.) We flew in NYC-based designer and illustrator Jessica Hische to give a lecture in space donated generously by Gallery Homeland, and we all drank free beer. 

Then midterms hit and we all flew back to reality.

So, thank you. Thank you for being rad. Thank you for giving me feedback, high-fives, and dollars for coffee. (Ben, I still owe you $2.) Thank you for giving me ideas. Thank you for collaborating with me.

I graduate this weekend. I'm excited for what's next, but I'm sad to leave the incredibly supportive community of peers that I've found at PSU. You guys made it good.

Keep up the good work.

Comments

[Heather]

You are AMAZING Nicole! What an awesome recap of how amazing we've all become with this little group — go PSU GD! Congrats on the graduating and don't be silly in thinking you're leaving us as, you're just expanding :]

[alex boyd]

I AM DEFINITELY NOT CRYING AT ALL.

Thanks, Nicole, for everything :)

[Christy Lee Zilka]

Awesome! I never did see that zine Jasmine worked on, is that somewhere to check out? Thanks for the post Nicole!

[laura jones]

thank you nicole!

[nicole lavelle]

No, thank YOU!

Christy, you should ask Jasmine! jasilver@pdx.edu

[logo design london]

This is fantastic that have educated masses and I am really glad to see the same thing has been attempted, thank you.

[Will Bryant]

hands down the most awesome student group ever!

[Hans v]

Thanks for writing this. A fitting retrospective.

I'll see you at graduation on Sunday, Nicole. Congrats :)

[Aaron]

Such an AWESOME post Nicole. inspired.
thanks for all your work. You're the one I'll miss the most, Scarecrow

[kate]

amazing. amazing. amazing. amazing.
you all are AMAZING!

THANK YOU NICOLE!
THANK YOU PSU FOGD!!

[Katie]

Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea how far the program had come, which makes me appreciate it even more!

[Mig Reyes]

What a beautiful recap, Nicolle. It was a pleasure meeting you and some of the crew in Memphis, you guys are truly crushing it, kicking ass and taking names. I'm excited for everyone to go on and do some big things! And thanks again for the opportunity to Skype chat with you all. (It was just as inspiring for me!)

Go YOU guys.

[Mig Reyes]

PS—Totally meant "Nicole." Oops!

[Jordans 3]

The blog article very surprised to me! Your writing is good. In this I learned a lot! Thank you

[michael eaton]

Great write up Nicole, you will go on to make and do great things I know it. You will be greatly missed around school, that doesn't mean I won't swing by pinball every now and then to buy you a cup of coffee!
Yeah PSU is totally killing it so many talented people designing-doing-making totally rad stuff. Great work FoGD peeps!

[Alyx]

I can't believe the girl who wanted to stay in school forever ended up graduating. What is the world coming to? Wonderful blog write, loved to see how things transformed from beginning to now. I hope to see you more in the future, awesome lady.

[Fireplaces]

When the information change, I transform my mind. What do you perform please?