Students from the com-munication department are taking their cameras across campus from the Reynolds building to the Stevens Art building to document the capstone projects of graphic design and interior design students in a reality television series called, “The Branding Project.”
Ginger Blackstone, instructor of communication, said she was approached by Amy Cox, assistant professor of art, and Daniel Adams, professor of art. Cox and Adams came to Blackstone last year with the idea of creating a show about the graphic and interior design students as they develop their capstone projects.
After completing a similar reality television series on Harding’s production of “Annie: The Musical” last semester, Blackstone said she felt her students were ready for another television series.
According to Blackstone, the students in the art department are divided into three teams of six. In order to complete their capstone project, they must create a “virtual business,” which entails designing the entire brand of the business, from the logo to the stationery to the color schemes to the location. Every year, the students are given a certain type of business to create based on a different theme.
Blackstone said this year’s students must create a boutique hotel based on the style of one of three American playwrights: Neil Simon, Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller. The students are then to design the hotel lobby, create the blueprints and choose the location.
Blackstone said the show follows the three groups, which are divided into Team Roomers, Team Schema and Team Perennial, as they try to meet deadlines, find inspiration for their projects and compete to create the best business.
“This is a much smaller production than compared to ‘Annie,'” said senior Michaelantonio Jones, segment producer for “The Branding Project.” “We have only six cameramen [for ‘The Branding Project’] compared to the 30 we had for ‘Annie.’ We started production back in January and it is coming along very well.”
Blackstone said the show began airing on channel 16 this past Wednesday, playing the first two episodes back-to-back.
Junior Rachel Clark, an interior design student working for Team Roomers, said it was difficult working on the project and ignoring the cameras.
“[The cameramen] prefer us not to look at the cameras,” Clark said. “But I am not very good at it. And it’s really hard not to laugh.”
The members of Team Roomers said they studied the plays of Neil Simon, author of Biloxi Blues and Rumours (from which the team got its name). In honor of Biloxi Blues, the Roomers are locating their hotel in Biloxi, Miss.
“The hotel structure is based off the life and plays of Neil Simon,” said junior Leslie Killebrew, another interior design student working on Team Roomers. “The floors will be concrete and in the lobby will be a lot of exposed frameworks. It matches his writing style.”
Blackstone said the series will end when the teams showcase their final projects in the Stevens Art building’s gallery on Spring Sing weekend. According to junior Mary Lira, a graphic design major working on Team Roomers, a panel of design professionals will judge the projects and donate money to the project they think did the best. The team that receives the most money is the unofficial “winner” and all of the money is donated to Habitat for Humanity, Lira said.
Blackstone said she and her students enjoyed being involved in other departments’ large projects and being able to share them with the rest of the student body.
“There are so many interesting things we don’t know about going on on campus because we get so focused on our own majors,” Blackstone said. “It’s like we’ve become little fiefdoms. With this we can branch out across campus and create something I think anyone can be interested in.”
