Printing company taps into CAT student design talent

Tursack “hired” the CAT Brandywine Commercial Graphic Arts class to design its 2007 calendar. As a result, the work of those students will be adorning the offices of employees at Vanguard, Bank of America and DuPont. In total, over 3,500 calendars will be distributed throughout the Delaware Valley.

According to graphic arts instructor Stephanie Walsh, her students were involved in every step of the process, from presenting their design concepts to Tursack’s marketing department, to creating graphics and designing the page layout, and then sending the production files to Tursack’s prepress department.

“This has been a tremendous learning experience,” said Walsh. “The students are working for a real client and that’s an experience I can’t recreate with a grade. “Plus, they are working from concept through finished product and they are learning everything that goes into a project each step of the way.”

According to students working on the project, the experience gave them insight to what they will face in the real world. “I liked doing it because it gives us experience on what we will be doing in the future,” said 11th grader Andrew Sherman from Downingtown. “Sometimes it was frustrating, because you had to figure out what the client wanted. They would say something but really mean something else. Now I know not to get frustrated but to ask more questions.”

Sherman produced the cover and the month of June 2007. Ashley Donohue, an 11th grader from West Chester, shared her thoughts on working on a real project.

“The deadlines came up really fast,” said Donohue. “But that’s okay because now I’ve actually produced something that will be professionally printed, not just printed on a piece of paper.” The project was also a learning experience for Tursack prepress manager Bob Smith, who discovered how short a school day actually is.

“With staff I can ask them to stay late and to work after hours to meet deadlines, but with high school students you can’t do that,” said Smith.

According to instructor Walsh, Tursack’s staff was very accommodating.

“They really worked with us and around our schedule. I know that was tough,” said Walsh.

“It was so good for the kids to work with professionals and to see how they will be expected to act and perform as employees. They got to work with staff at all levels. They worked with interns just out of college, as well as seasoned professionals.” For Smith the end product was worth it.

“I was absolutely thrilled,” said Smith. “There was a lot of positive outcomes from this project and that’s why we wanted to feature the students prominently on one of the pages and not hide it in a line note. We wanted to celebrate the collaboration.”

Tursack Incorporated, a Consolidated Graphics Company, is located in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.