Brandi Wilson-Sides BFA Exhibition

UAB Design graduate Brandi Wilson-Sides' BFA exhibition is on display from November 21 thru December 19, at the UAB Mervyn-Sterne Library. The BFA work is on display in the first floor display cases.

"This exhibition features three campaigns based on companies that represent standards that I find admirable and unique," said Brandi. Each campaign contains a business system, a product, and product packaging. You can see all three of these campaigns as well as a diagram and examples of the process used to create them.

Design Team Project chosen by CRS

The Cahaba River Society has chosen team H2O's brochure campaign design to use as their official marketing materials. Monica Carmichael of the CRS said it had been a very hard decision based on the outstanding quality of the work they received. The final brochures are in editing now and will go into production at Vulcan Materials later this month. Congratulations to team H2O.

H2O 

Members: Daniel Twieg, Lindsay Warner, Jasmine Gooden 

See the other teams and designs after the jump:

Design Students Present to Local Agencies

On Thursday, November 11th, UAB's Intermediate Graphic Design students presented their final work for the Cahaba River Society to Monica Carmichael and Gordon Black of the Society. The students worked in teams of 2/3 for the past 3 weeks, visiting the Cahaba river, taking photos and developing their own visual narrative about this wonderful Alabama resource.

Matt Leavell from the Alabama Engine and Dan Monroe from Cayenne Creative were also part of the group listening to presentations and offering feedback. The Society will choose a direction form the eight  options and work with that team to finalize the project.

Previously, students had present the work to David McMath at Intermark and Sara Cannon and Dan Gavin from Scout for in-process feedback.

Watch for more info as the project develops.

Design Grad Chosen for DoD Design

UAB graphic design graduate Christopher Murphy's poster design was chosen as the winning entry for the Birmingham Day of the Dead festival for 2011. The poster and children's tees will be available at the festival.


Dia de los Muertos #9 will be held at the old Bare Hands gallery location in downtown Birmingham. Wednesday, November 2, 2011 from 5pm - 10pm.

For more information go to barehandsinc.org or on facebook -

Dia de los Muertos.

UAB Art Faculty to Show at the GMA

UAB art faculty will show recent work at the Gadsden Museum of Art's Alabama's Best invitational art exhibition. Alabama's Best is on display from November 1st to December 31st, with an opening on November 20th. UAB artists featured include: Gary Chapman, Sonja Reiger, Jim Alexander, Erin Wright, John Powers, Doug Baulos, Christopher Lowther, and Doug Barrett.

The goal of the Gadsden Museum of Art is to support and maintain a museum of local history and to support and maintain a museum dedicated to Southern artists. The museum is open Monday - Saturday from 10am - 4pm.

UAB Designer Teas featured on Project Splash

One of UAB's Introduction to Graphic Design projects is featured on Project Splash this month. The project titled, "Designer Teas," is an introductory project where design students are paired with historic designers as a way to interact with and build their own aesthetic. Student research other designers such as, El Lissitsky, Art Chantry, David Carson, Paul Rand, Lester Beall, etc., and use there work as a collaborative spring board to inspire their own work.

The project also requires considering the work in 3D and building a box from a template, using those all important craft skills!

UAB Designs for Non-Profit

UAB design students are currently working with the Cahaba River Society on a project to create 3 new brochures that support the mission of the local non-profit. The CRS is an organization who's missions is, "to restore and protect the Cahaba River watershed and its rich diversity of life." Students will spend the next 4 weeks, exploring the river, doing research on the rich plant and animal life and working on designing a brochure system that tells the unique story of this wonderful resource.  

The project is being facilitated by Matt Leavell at Alabama Engine.

UAB Design Graduate Crafts New Magazine

UAB Design student graduate, Courtney Kyle spent the last three months art directing, creating and crafting her first major publication. The premier issue of the craft magazine "Stitch, Craft, Create" hits the newsstand this month with 130 pages of fantastic crafts and holiday ideas, all from right here in Alabama. Kyle worked on the magazine for Hoffman Media, LLC. an Alabama company. She lent her talents to typesetting and laying out pages as well as designing several of the craft projects herself. She was even responsible for creating directions for subscribers to follow to successfully create the crafts themselves. Courtney told us she loved all the hands-on opportunities that designing and creating a large-scale craft publication entails. On the newsstand October 18, 2011.

New Home for the UAB Art Department

The UAB Department of Art and Art History will have a new home in the fall of 2013. The building (pictured) was designed by Los Angeles-based Randall Stout Architects. Randall served as Senior Associate to world-renowned architect Frank Gehry from 1989 to 1996 and, in 1993, started his own architecture firm.The firm has designed numerous noteworthy buildings both in Europe and here,including the new wing of the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, and the Art Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke.

The new building will feature multiple gallery spaces and a unique metal exterior. Groundbreaking will begin over the winter holiday of 2011.

Design Students Packaging on Display

Jin Chung, Jennifer Waycaster

UAB Graphic Design students recently completed a packaging project for ARS 350 Intermediate Design. Students were asked to create a design for a snack that references local Alabama culture, places and/or people. Finished projects can be seen on display in the main Department of Art and Art History hallway on the first floor of the UAB Humanities building. Students worked conceptually with the idea of southern culture, history and ideals to create a snack and the packaging imagery to support it.

UAB Design Student in the Big Apple!

UAB Graphic Design student, Cana Grooms, spent the summer in the big apple interning with home design guru and bon vivant Jonathan Adler. She worked for 3 months on everything from basic patterns and color palettes to a redesign of the Adler product tags that will be used in all their stores. Talking about her experience Grooms said, "I was given tons of freedom. I would be given a basic idea of what the project was and the concept, and then allowed to ramble through designs and present the strongest ones at the end of the day." Cana was given free reign on many of the projects she touched, including the design of the 2011 Holiday Look Book. Talking about life in NYC, "Its crazy and wonderful at the same time, there is so much creative inspiration in the city. There is an energy that constantly renews your creative spirit."  

Zach Williams Featured in Tom's Poster

UAB Design graduate, Zach Williams, was featured in an in-store poster promo for Tom's shoes. Zach has been working as a design intern at Tom's in San Diego, California for the last few months. He has been creating printed visual for in-store promotions and "loving life in sunny Venice."

UAB Design Students Win Big at 2011 Addys!

pictured: Alexandra, Elizabeth, Brittany, Alyssa

Thursday, February 24, 2011 - UAB graphic design faculty and students won 9 awards in several different categories on Thursday night at the 53rd Annual Birmingham Addy Awards. The event was held at the Alabama Theatre. Addys recognize excellence in advertising and graphic design. Three creative directors hailing from San Francisco, Denver and Chicago juried the work.

Assistant Professor, Douglas Barrett received 2 Silver place awards in the category Advertising for the Arts and Sciences for work done for the Department of Art and Art History.

Student awards are:

Alexandra Crawford, Student Best of Show
Alexandra Crawford, Gold, Student Editorial
Brittany Fox, Gold, Student Non-Traditional Advertising
Brittany Fox, Gold, Student Collateral
Alyssa Mitchell, Silver, Student Non-Traditional Advertising
Lindsey Griggs, Silver, Student Collateral
Elizabeth Springer, Silver, Student Collateral