Stillwater High School student artists create new village landmark banners

sample bannerIt will be a banner day this spring when the Village of Stillwater unveils along its streets the artistic creations of nine students studying at Stillwater High School. The students are part of two classes of 28 in teacher Samantha Brennan’s Digital Media and Graphic Design course.

The students, who are learning introductory visual design concepts and principles in the course produced with computer programs from the Adobe Create Suite series, answered the call of Mayor Rick Nelson, who was looking for someone to design new 3 X 5 foot banners for 10 village landmarks. “We wanted to highlight our young school talent in featuring our village institutions,” he said.

These landmarks include Town and Village Halls, the fire department, American Legion, library, Blockhouse, community center, school district and churches. “The mayor wanted something bright and colorful,” Brennan recalled. “I quickly responded ‘yes’ because my students have already developed many of the skills of working as a graphic designer.”

Design skills learned in the course include creating digital illustrations, photography, typography, advertising, photo manipulation, and other scopes of the graphic arts. For each assignment the students are responsible for creating a design based on the guidelines, images, and information the customer is asking for. Both classes reached out to the 10 village institutions and collaborated on the design ideas. Many banner designs were submitted, but in the end, 10 (created by nine students in all) were chosen as finalists. The 10 banner designs are featured in this photo gallery along with the names of the student artists who created them.

“Each part of this process was such a great learning experience for the students,” Brennan explained. “The best part of all is that their work will be up for everyone in the community to see and enjoy!”