Students are using their creativity and design skills to revitalize the Onondaga Creekwalk.

The 38 students, all juniors in the communications design program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, have taken on the task of creating a campaign to give the Onondaga Creekwalk a facelift this semester in CMD 352: ‘Design Project Management.’ The course is offered to students during the second semester of their junior year and is required for the major.

Students will present the final project to Syracuse city officials at 10:30 a.m. April 18 at The Warehouse. The presentation is open to the public.

Daphnee Ochoa, branding group leader for the Creekwalk project, said the Creekwalk wasn’t something students talked about until this year, when they were assigned a project on it. Now, she said, she and her classmates have come to appreciate the Creekwalk and are eager to spread the word.

‘The Creekwalk is something that runs right through downtown Syracuse, so it’s so connected to us, especially since it runs right by The Warehouse, which is where the design students work 99 percent of the time,’ Ochoa said. ‘Whenever they’re not sleeping at home, they’re at The Warehouse.’

William Padgett, professor of the CMD 352 course, said the class takes on one large, complex project for the semester and divides the students into various groups. The students then complete and pitch a project to the client, like they will do after graduation when they work at professional design firms.

‘It’s perfect timing because it’s the middle of their time with us,’ Padgett said. ‘It’s junior year, it’s second semester, they’ve got a lot of things under their belt and next year’s their senior year, and they’re pretty much getting ready to go out and go to any design firm in the world.’

Padgett and Rod Martinez, another professor of the class, pitched the project to city officials after seeing an article in the newspaper about how the city had taken steps to improve the area, but needed to improve the creek’s brand, Padgett said.

Padgett said the class originally focused on magazine design, but in the ’90s it evolved into a project management class. The class first did projects on programs within the university and then moved to nonprofit projects. In recent years, however, the professors have chosen for-profit projects. Padgett said the client puts up money to sponsor the class.

The professors chose to take on for-profit clients because they felt it made the clients more accountable and involved in the process, Padgett said.

‘They were really engaged because they obviously are paying for something. It’s not the going rate at any kind of design firm. It’s a small fraction of that, but all it does is really makes them involved,’ he said.

Katja Andersson, public relations group leader for the project, said the goal is to improve citizens’ perceptions of the Creekwalk. She said they hoped to promote the creek as a social space for families and nature lovers.

‘Even if we’re the kids up on the hill, … I still think we know we can make a difference, especially with our design skills,’ Andersson said.

As public relations group leader, Andersson said it is up to her to make sure there is a good turnout for the final presentation that will take place April 18. Andersson and her team have been reaching out to local newspapers, radio and TV stations, and embracing social media such as Facebook and Twitter to get the word out.

Rachel Renock, digital design group leader, said the students usually design for themselves, and are, for the most part, able to design whatever they see fit. She said she felt it was beneficial to experience the practicality of a real campaign.

The digital design group has focused on creating a new Web page for the Creekwalk, an application and a QR code scanning system, which will allow visitors to scan a code that will lead them to additional information that coincides with signs along the Creekwalk, Renock said. She said the goal is to create multiple layers of information.

Although she and her classmates are working for a client and must meet their needs, Renock said city officials have given the students a significant amount of freedom with the project. She said she hopes the city will implement as much of their work as funds permit.

‘That’s been really cool and interesting because you always think in school, ‘This is my time to be as creative as I possibly can because when I get to the real world they’re going to tell me to tone it down,” she said. ‘But they really haven’t. They’ve let us make a lot of creative decisions.’

cffabris@syr.edu 

Published on April 10, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Casey: cffabris@syr.edu | @caseyfabris