‘Art is Hard’ for graphic designers

Some students believe being an artist is easy and that anyone with glue, macaroni and finger-paint can do it.

Misconceptions such as those were an inspiration to a group of senior graphic design students for their exhibit, “Art is Hard.”

Weidman senior Billie Jo McEvers and other graphic design students made it their mission to ensure others know how hard they have worked and what it is to be a graphic design artist.

“The main idea behind (the concept) is people think art is the lazy man’s way out,” McEvers said, “But it’s hard work.”

McEvers said people do not understand the effort and hours of work graphic design takes to create something from nothing.

“It’s not art in a traditional sense, but we still learn it in all the traditional ways,” McEvers said. “We just have a different canvas.”

“Art is Hard” is a graphic design senior portfolio exhibition going on through Tuesday to make fun of art stereotypes and showcase senior students’ work, said Croswell senior Sara Fisher. It is displayed in the main gallery of the University Art Gallery.

“Basically we’re just poking fun at what we do,” Fisher said. “We’re making fun of the fact that people think (art) is easy.”

The exhibit includes everything from interactive Web sites that students designed to other projects such as senior or “capstone” projects that involve an array of different works to educate people on a certain issue.

Art professor Larry Burditt said the capstone projects are up to the student’s discretion about what topic and designing ideas they used.

“(The capstone project) should be something that they are passionate about,” Burditt said. “An issue they want to educate on or speak out about.”

Troy senior Dan Corcoran came up with the exhibit’s name and poster design from the song “Art is Hard” by Cursive.

He chose to do a campaign about the United States’ national debt for his capstone project.

“I tried to put (the national debt) in perspective for people who don’t have a full understanding of it,” Corcoran said.

He took a variety of different things that someone could buy with the country’s national debt and designed pamphlets, a billboard and other objects to make people more aware.

Two examples he used were 2,753,709,705,768 tall Starbucks mochas and 40,707,013,041 minor in possession tickets.

Corcoran said in his mind, art is easy to define in history, but today it is a little harder to define.

“It’s really something easy to overlook,” Corcoran said. “It’s still art, whether it’s an art you want to accept or not.”