Super Designs Are Student's End Goal

University of Cincinnati graphic design junior Dan Phillips, 22, of Western Hills (Green Township), is at the top of his creative game.

He feels that way, in part, because of his two most recent cooperative-education quarters – spring and fall 2006 – when he became part of a team of four designers who created all the stadium, city and airport graphics related to the

Feb. 4

Super Bowl to be held in Miami’s Dolphin stadium.

“My family thinks it’s great, and my friends can’t believe I had co-op jobs that were so cool. Every artist wants his work to be seen, and I’ll get that on Super Bowl Sunday. Millions of people will see work I did,” said Phillips, adding that the best part of his co-op experience was “being so trusted by my co-op employer to do this work. It’s great to be trusted and respected like that.”

Phillips had the chance to design for the Super Bowl because he co-opped with Infinite Scale Design Group (ISDG) in Salt Lake City, a firm that specializes in creating designs for large-scale sports events, including the Olympics. Co-op or

cooperative education

is where students alternate quarters of paid, professional work with academic quarters spent in the classroom. The practice of co-op was

invented at UC

in 1906, and the university houses a co-op program ranked among the nation’s very best by

U.S. News & World Report

.

Among the Super Bowl projects that Phillips ran with on behalf of Infinite Scale were designs for:

• The field wall of Dolphin stadium, along with designs for the fascia (upper deck layers) of the stadium.

• The tunnel through which players run, to travel from the locker room to the field.

• Outdoor and interior graphics throughout the media center.

• Wayfinding signage at the stadium.

• Banners in the AFC and NFC locker rooms.

• Banners placed at two gates into the stadium and team flags hanging outside the stadium.

• Fence wrap (material used to cover fencing), including the fencing around the AFC and NFC practice fields.

• The banners on the backs of the players’ benches.

• The goal-post padding.

Actually, Phillips is one of a handful of UC design students – all from the university’s

internationally recognized

College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning – to contribute to Super Bowl projects over the last three years. For instance, two years ago, graphic design student

Travis Lee

co-opped with Infinite Scale, and last year,

Zach Norman

and Elise Beckett did so.

In fact, his predecessors inspired Phillips in his own goal to pursue similar co-op work experience: “When I watched the Super Bowl two years ago, I remember thinking, ‘The designs look so sweet.’ I even remarked on them to a buddy of mine who was watching the game with me. I had no idea that a fellow UC student (Travis Lee) had anything to do with them.”

“Then,” added Phillips, “just a week later, I found out that Travis, who was a UC senior at the time, had contributed to a lot of the designs. I was blown away that it was my school and my major that had done all that work.”

It was then, two years ago, that Phillips decided to pursue his own chance for co-op opportunities with Infinite Scale. First though, he obtained co-op work experience with another firm here in Cincinnati. After he had two co-op quarters to his credit, he applied for a co-op opportunity with Infinite Scale.

He explained, “Applying for a co-op is like applying for a job. I put together my very best work in my portfolio, and I wrote a cover letter. I have to admit that it was a pretty impassioned co-op letter. I was very familiar with the firm’s work, and I basically said that of all the companies I might go to work for on co-op, this is the one I want to work for. I was totally revved up when I went to work for ISDG in spring 2006.”

And Phillips learned a lot because the designers all worked in one room together, sometimes even working all night to meet a deadline. So, if he ever needed guidance or advice, he only had to ask a team member right next to him. “At first,” admitted Phillips, “I considered myself a rookie with certain techniques and with certain software, and there was a big learning curve. I was really challenged.”

But that challenge helped him become a better designer: “I used to try to figure every design problem out before I set to work. Now I figure things out as I go. I’m quicker with everything. I attack a problem now.”

There is one downside to the whole experience. Phillips stated, “I used to just watch the game, but now, I cannot not pay attention to the graphics. Watching this year, I’ll probably be pointing out to my friends, ‘I did that – and that’ and helping them to see the banners, flags and murals I worked on. I’ll probably even critique how they [the other designers] hung up my stuff.”