This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the 46th Annual Film Follies put on by Penn State’s graphic design students. This longstanding tradition amongst students in this major is a compilation film of different clips — usually 2 minutes or less — that the students completely create and produce themselves. The clips are extremely abstract, but are distinctly related to social and political issues. For example, one of the clips featured a “real life Barbie” while another depicted Donald Trump as Humpty Dumpty. About 30 clips are threaded together into a film that is roughly an hour and fifteen minutes long. This is a huge accomplishment for the graphic design students that they rightfully feel a lot of pride for.
I just wanted to commend the graphic design students not just for this success, but for going largely unnoticed. Many do not know the intense curriculum that the students face in this highly competitive program. Only about 20 students are accepted every year to major in graphic design at Penn State. Their skill set extends far beyond the uninformed stereotype of “photoshopping.” For example, they are also skilled at video and photography. They are highly skilled at art in a variety of mediums, and many of their classes include physical art such as woodworking. In fact, my roommate Janet had a scary experience with an X-Acto knife just a few weeks ago after an incident in her studio – don’t fret, she’s great now.
You can click here to view Jenna’s website (each student has their own website that serves as their portfolio) to help you understand the scope of a graphic design student’s work. It is my hope that people across all different fields can learn to appreciate each other and understand the magnitude of all different kinds of work.