New printing and creative opportunities are available in Canyon Hill’s Graphic Design Club with new materials, machines, and guides on how to work them available to all.
Recently ordered sublimation blanks (empty material to print on) have found their home in the Graphic Design classroom and club space. Organized by teacher Michael Pederson and the club president Katherine Zeman.
“I’ve wanted to be able to do products that are short run,” says Graphic Design teacher Michael Pederson, adding that “[his] ultimate goal was to be able to get stuff into the hands of my students that they could make, take with them, and be proud of.”
Although in clubs, or even some classes, projects can be experiments that are short-run fun, Pederson has a different plan. With hopes that this fun idea will carry on for further years “permanently.”
Pederson explains that he’s “Looking for whatever students are most interested in…since we’ve gotten bookmarks, and ornaments, and photos, and dog tags,” explaining how “[he] started out based on ‘what does the club want?’”
Despite not many taking the initiative and printing things at the moment, there are several works in progress. Several students expressed interest in the idea, especially since it is not limited to those who have experience with or are in Graphic Design, leaving everything open to anyone.
“I got one student that isn’t mine that wanted to make a gift for Christmas for her mom,” Pederson comments about a recent project. He tells how “,[he] helped her make a thing with a whole bunch of pictures of her as a baby and stuff, which was super cute.”
Just as all of the printing and sublimations are available to all students, so are the studio applications. With several machines having unknown or unexplored widgets. Among those available are the lights.
“I’ve been looking at the studio lights and trying to find out how they work with the panel on the wall of the room,” says Junior Patrick Murphy as he, alongside Juniors Arianna Jennings and Hayley Nguyen have been learning what the lights have to offer.
Most of the machines are in plain view and are simple to operate, yet not many are used often such as the heat press with the bookmarks and tote bags, the Woo engraver, and several printers.
“They were introduced, people used them sometimes, but there was never really a proper introduction. So we started to learn about it on our own.” Murphy comments about their motivations.
Throughout their experiments, they have found several additional modes and uses besides those known before. With plans to make a mini-guide or cheat sheet on how to work them.
“There’s a party mode which goes through different colors and a strobe light,” Murphy comments on their findings. However, he notes that “There is some confusion on how the light selection works because you can have like all but one selected and they’ll still all change the same, so it’s kinda weird.”
Hopefully with their new cheat sheets, and more people willing to create for the fun of it, all of the current plans will come to fruition!
