Last week a few of us from the Trailer got invited to judge the MTSU art department’s first juried student show called hype.

The thought of revisiting my alma mater as a ‘judge’ felt a little strange (and we do love strange), so we packed up and headed south for a monday morning field trip, hyped to see some student work and have some good healthy debate.

The first annual show had a nice turnout, and the array of entries ranging from silk-screen to motion design was a stimulating reminder of a few collegiate principles we can all hope to retain no matter how far removed from academia we may be.

Students experiment. They’re fearless and many of them run they’re own show like it’s a serious business. There isn’t the necessity in school to only do one thing, get good at it and then repeat. Alternately, there is actually a push to try it all. There’s no art director/copy writer tandem. There are instead writer-animator-designer-programmer-photographer’s, all tucked up in to one person, and the work feels really distinct for that reason. The vision from start to finish in many pieces was noticeably unwavering making the concept all that more poignant.

Personal ownership in the work we do as paid people should be no less enthusiastic. Often when things venture off into design-by-committee-land we deem it ‘clientized’, letting go of any real personal accountability. But for me at least, that’s sometimes a sorry excuse for lack of persistence.

So, thanks MTSU students for serving as a nice kick in the arse. Your passion for design was apparent and reminded me that fighting through momentary creative set-backs is all part of the fun of being in this world anyway.

Here are a few pics from the judging.

 

Email a Friend redpepperLand

To:

From:

Note:

Close

  1 comment

Tags: Art, hype, MTSU, persistence, students

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...