Students showcase work for Portfolio Day
Prof Meena Khalili (center) with the graduating cohort of BFA in Graphic Design students.
“From subway maps to presidential campaigns, from print to interactive, graphic design has the ability to support or derail a message,” said Prof. Meena Khalili (Fine Arts). “As a practitioner of graphic design, this is a heavy responsibility.”
Graphic design impacts and affects every aspect of our modern lives. What we choose to buy, to eat, to wear, to listen to, and to watch are all influenced by the ways designers have chosen to package and sell to consumers. The 2017 BFA in Graphic Design graduates in the College of Arts & Sciences are uniquely poised to excel in the design world. At the Fine Arts Department’s annual Portfolio Day, graduating seniors had the opportunity to show their work to a large number of Louisville area and regional design professionals and discuss how their experiences in the College prepared them for success.
“Our graphic design students follow a rigorous curriculum that engages their visual and verbal craft through collaborative, theoretical, experimental and applied real world projects to prepare them for these responsibilities as they graduate and transition into their careers” Prof. Khalili said.
Professor and Designer-in-Residence Leslie Friesen teaches the capstone course for the BFA and organizes Portfolio Day each year. Portfolio Day includes a professional review in the morning attended by a 90 to 100 design professionals, plus a friends and family reception in the afternoon. This year two students received the Gold “Best of the Best” award: Gwen Galeza and Chelsea Zoeller.
“Portfolio Day at the Hite is exciting for us as we congratulate our students who have completed their capstone Portfolio course” Prof. Khalili said. “I co-teach our gatekeeper course in graphic design, and with my colleagues, I review and select the students who matriculate into the program.
“In this first year working with the Hite I have taught a few of our graduating seniors and I've been overwhelmed by their professionalism, enthusiasm, and engagement in the work they do.”
The Graphic Design BFA program at the Hite Art Institute stresses the thinking behind visual communication and design, not just the making of design artifacts. Eighty percent of graphic design undergraduates in the program participate in internships and graphic design-related work outside the curriculum, and 85 percent of graduates are working as designers, or in a design-related or visual art profession.
