Graphic Design Course Combines Competition and Cultural Exchange

The Class Was Structured Around the 2024 Cultural Olympiad Poster Competition

This summer, posters by four Graphic Design students from Otis College were displayed in Paris as part of a poster competition for the Cultural Olympiad of Paris 2024 and the lead-up to the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. But long before their Paris debut, the posters were being developed during a course specifically structured around the competition.

Upon learning of the competition, Otis faculty Frankie Hamersma (’15 BFA Communication Arts, ’17 MFA Graphic Design) and Davey Whitecraft integrated the project into their Graphic Design IV course, which requires students to experiment with form and media by building increasingly complex visual systems and narratives. The course and its learning outcomes were aligned with the goals of the competition, which was designed to foster cultural exchange by uniting students from art schools in Paris and Los Angeles to showcase creativity, cooperation, Olympic themes, and civic engagement through art and design. 

It was also a chance for students to work with a real client brief with restrictions that reflect the professional world, including a tight turnaround and a hard deadline for revisions. “The time constraint was a challenge for some students but was also a great opportunity for them to work on a professional project with a specific prompt and guidelines,” says Hamersma. “They were able to pivot to produce really outstanding work within a quick time frame.”

Participants from four art and graphic design schools—Otis College, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), ArtCenter College of Design from Los Angeles County and the Ecole Professionnelle Supérieure d’Arts Graphiques de Paris (EPSAA)—were tasked with creating a poster illustrating the Olympic hand-over between Paris and Los Angeles. 

“We were particularly excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity for the students to have global exposure alongside other talented students,” says Hamersma. 

The Graphic Design course expanded upon skills gained in a prior semester course combining typography and images to create meaning. The 30 students were charged with cultivating their interests via research, developing their working methods, and applying them to print and screen-based media, using analog and digital techniques, with emphasis on iteration, refinement, and presentation skills. 

“I was particularly impressed at their excitement, positivity, and commitment to working towards finding creative solutions to the prompt,” says Hamersma. “The cohort worked together to give feedback to each other to help improve not only their own work but the work of their peers. I was very proud of how the students developed a comradery and pride for representing their school through their works. I was also delighted to see such a variation of strategies and interpretations to completing the prompt given.”

There was a selection process internally within the Graphic Design department before 12 of the 30 posters were submitted to the larger jury that consisted of representatives from Otis, CalArts, ArtCenter, Paris’s EPSAA, as well as city officials from Los Angeles and Paris, including the Mayor of Paris. Posters by Luke Kim, Lydia Wang, Ysabel Morales, and Sam Voong were selected to be displayed alongside posters by designers from the other participating schools at the Jardin Villemin–Mahsa Jîna Amini in Paris and on the City of Paris’s website. “Student work from our classes does not usually get exhibited globally, so that was also a really phenomenal opportunity,” adds Hamersma.

The posters were also shown in Los Angeles on digital screens in the Music Center complex downtown and exhibited in City Hall’s Bridge Gallery. In addition to the posters, each student created digital animations that were shown on different platforms. Posters by the 12 finalists, all Class of 2025 Graphic Design majors—the aforementioned four as well as Eva Charakchyan, Ariana Choi, Elad Cohen, Benny Goodman, Kara Kardinal, Seunghae Kim, Hyunsu Pak, and Eulmin Park—were also displayed as part of a temporary student and alumni exhibition presented during the third annual Notice Otis event at the end of September, and they can also be viewed online.

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