Recruitment Notepad

 

Word Matrix

Thumbnail sketches

 

Rough sketch

Proof

     The assignment was to design a notepad to be given away to high school students interested in Pittstate’s GIT program. The only required specifications of the project were that it use only black ink, have 50 sheets perfect bound with chipboard backing, and it had to be designed to reach the high school demographic as an audience. After analyzing the target audience, I developed thumbnails and roughs that lead me to the design I chose.

     I thought about my experiences as a high school student, formulated a word matrix, and tried empathized with the current high school demographic. One category found in my word matrix that I could relate and empathize with was entertainment. This is a broad category that included games, movies, books, music, and commercials. I didn’t want the notepad to appear like it was specifically targeting high school students because most perspective GIT students who would see this are looking to the future beyond high school. I wanted to take a more subtle approach, so I looked at common themes and trends in entertainment that most high school students enjoyed. Several video games and movies lately have been about concepts of the future and technological advancement. Among these, some of the most popular are actually set in the past, or set in the style of the past, often to an early industrial era, or in the 1940s-60s, when the art deco was a popular architecture style. Industrial/ functional design is also a popular theme in media. I realize that I may have dug a little deep for my theme, but I think its potential is best proved in the popularity of games such as Bioshock, Fallout, and Halo and movies such as Avatar, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes, and TV shows like Lost. 

     I combined the Art Deco and industrial themes and worked with it for a while until I came up with the design I created. I modeled it off of the Bioshock logo, which is a very popular game franchise currently building hype on their next release. Then I incorporated a modified version of the Kansas Tech Center aperture logo to my image for emphasis and to help create a focal point. Finally I added an industrial, riveted footer to tie the piece together and create unity and balance. I believe this design will reach many high school student demographics, especially gamers and many students interested in our GIT program.