New club on campus calls all graphic design enthusiasts

By Adrianna Jaccoma

Looking around at a Rider club fair, you’ll see that most of the majors in the communication department have their own clubs that correspond. The Rider News for journalism students, 107.7 The Bronc for broadcasting students and Rider University Network for film and television students to name a few, but one area of study that has been unrepresented is graphic design.

On Nov. 1, a group of students gathered for the first meeting of the graphic design club. Students packed into Fine Arts room 223, eager to learn more about the new club and make friends who share their interests.

According to an email sent out on Oct. 31, the graphic design club will focus on developing connections and portfolios. Students will also learn about potential career options and opportunities in the field. The club will host events that will give members the opportunity to gain professional experience within the graphic design field.

President of the graphic design club, junior graphic design major Jenna Krauss, realized Rider was missing something when she first toured the school.

“While I was touring colleges in the beginning of my college journey, a lot of the other schools had graphic design clubs and Rider did not,” said Krauss.

With the help of professor Jessica Oliano, Krauss and a group of students worked on the club over
the summer and were able to get the club quickly approved by Rider’s Student Government Association (SGA) in the beginning of the fall semester.

Junior graphic design major Eva Tang had a role helping the club form before the fall semester.

“Over the summer, I helped Jenna [Krauss] and Adrienne [Unfreed]… and we were preparing the constitution and writing the bylaws [for the club],” said Tang.

The club activities were soon underway when students played a game of Gartic Phone and showed off their artistic skills.

The rules of the game are simple yet complex. Each player has to write a sentence about anything, then the next player has to draw that sentence. The third player then has to guess what the player drew. The game keeps on going from there until the last round. At the end of the game, everyone gets to watch the thread and see how the prompt started versus how it ended.

Sophomore marketing major Caheil Powell participated in the fun.

“Even when we played the game today, a lot of people had different styles, and I feel like I’m already learning so much from them,” said Powell.

When the drawing and guessing round was over, students watched each other’s guesses and drawings appear on the screen. Students enjoyed watching what each other drew and how prompts went from one thing to the next.

“I don’t get to be around graphic design all the time… I needed something that can get me out of my comfort zone and back into [a] creative space, that I could express myself and be around like minded individuals,” said Powell.

There are many goals that the club wants to achieve. The main one being a sense of community.

“We want to be a community for graphic design students… and also a way for kids in graphic design to grow,” Krauss said.

Graphic design manager Adrienne Unfreed is a memeber of this club and did not a part in the writing or editing of this piece.