The Digital Art and Design Foundations class has a new project installation in the Cartersville Library. The installation features posters from five students that explain the seven elements and principles of design. The posters demonstrate two of the traits to show an understanding of the material.

The class itself is new to the campus, fall of 2021 being its second semester. The class only has five students but is working hard to grow in size. Professor of Humanities, Valentina Caver, said the program was started to fill a hole she saw at Highlands.

“The students that take this class or come in to learn the basics of graphic design, they have some artistic knowledge from our classes, but not necessarily digital,” Caver said, “We go over how do you take an idea or, the visual idea, and how do you take the knowledge that you have and create it into something that is aligned with the objectives of different projects.”

“They (the students) come in a lot of times without the basic knowledge of 2D so we cover that as well. Elements of design, things like line, color, scale, shape, alignment, contrast and space. And how do you take that and communicate a message visually,” Caver said.

The project is to demonstrate the students’ knowledge of color, fonts, shapes and different design elements. The students each picked two of the elements of design to display in their posters.

“I chose to use contrast and scale. I used big shapes and contrasting colors to grab the attention of the viewer while also making sure they know what the poster is about. I did not want to make the poster too complicated, so I used big shapes to make a simple design,” said Hayden Bryant, a Cartersville student.

“Mine is the art deco looking one, it’s the one that’s really dark. It’s red and green and gold. The elements that I really wanted to focus on were line in shape,” said Matthew Perry, a Floyd campus student.

The project allowed Perry to tap into a bit of nostalgia and prepared him for his other current undertakings.

“I’m the student council president and we actually have a Halloween event they were trying to do, so I thought ‘Hey, why not get some practice for that event by making a poster for another event?’” Perry said.

The library was closely involved with the new installation. Librarian Jessica Osborne reached out to Caver about putting up the posters in the library to help put a spotlight on the new class and to get people interested.

“It could be very good for GHC and for students. Graphic Arts is a field that’s in demand. It’s also a field that crosses over into a lot of other fields. So I think it benefits students to know about it,” said Osborne, “beyond that, art in the library is important, because this is the first free education in the United States . . . access to education is always free in a library.”

The library and Caver plan to continue doing installations of class projects throughout the remainder of the school year. Students have already begun planning their next project.

“I was very pleased with how my poster turned out and I really enjoyed learning more about the program as I designed it,” Cartersville Student, Jenna Patterson said. “I am very excited to begin our next project which will mimic the actual process of designing a logo for a client.”

The continued projects will educate viewers on the basics of design and share what the new digital art and design class has to offer.