Hoofprints Creative Studios took a five-day trip to Chicago to visit marketing agencies and further their knowledge in Public Relations.
Hoofprints is the Communication Department’s advertising and public relations agency run by students and advised by assistant professor of communication Steve Shaner. Hoofprints has worked with clients in Little Rock and have brought their work across the globe with Agape Asia, a foundation dedicated to saving abandoned children in Asia.
The Chicago trip was an opportunity for students to be exposed to the professional field, visiting marketing agencies such as Bader Rutter and Motion. agency.
When at the marketing agencies professionals reviewed the student’s and offered advice on how to improve projects like the one’s for Agape Asia. The group saw firsthand what they will be doing in the future.
Senior Meals Martin said she loved seeing the same work she does at Harding in a professional setting.
“I am the art director for [Hoofprints], and I got to actually talk to an art director that is getting paid to do that,” Martin said.
For junior Mason Burcham, said he loved the diversity he saw on the trip — from the pizza to Chinatown to the marketing agencies.
“I got insight on the different work environment,” Burcham said. “So one was modern and a bunch of younger people, and the other one was more traditional, so it was nice to see the differing work environments.” Burcham said.
Shaner said he looked forward to this trip as it has become an annual event for the last. 12 years, only missing one year due to limited attendance.
Shaner is retiring in May, and this trip was the last one he will take as a faculty member.
“So to me, it is like going home.”
“Chicago is my hometown and where I went to graduate school, where I was a teacher before Harding and where I had a professional advertising agency,” Shaner said. “So to me, it is like going home.”
