UWG Artists: A Presence in the Peachtree Road Race

No matter who wins this year’s AJC Peachtree Road Race, the University of West Georgia will have a presence in the race. The winner of the t-shirt design contest will be announced July 4, the day of the race, and three of the school’s art students are among the five finalists.

But designs by two other UWG artists are already part of the Peachtree event. Race volunteers will wear Holly Berndt’s peach-hued design. T-shirts bearing Kyler Hembree’s road sign design will be on sale during the 2012 Peachtree Health and Fitness Expo on July 1 and 2 at the Georgia World Congress Center.       

“I’m proud of what the students have done,” said Clint Samples, associate professor of art, who uses the contest as a teaching tool in his Digital Media for Artists class. “This is a huge accomplishment. We are holding our own against professionals in the Atlanta area.”

His students have been contenders in the design contest for four consecutive years. Two, in 2011 and 2010, have won it. Last year, designs by two of Samples’ students were also selected for other events related to the road race – the expo and the Atlanta Track Club’s In-Training for Peachtree program. In 2009 a design submitted by Samples was used for the expo t-shirt.

For this year’s contest Berndt, 23, took Samples advice to paint first. She painted the peach and the swoop of color below it by hand, scanning it into her computer later. Berndt used Photoshop for the skyline and overlaid the letters with the colors from her painting.

“I wasn’t expecting to win anything,” said Berndt, an art education major who graduated this spring. She will begin teaching at Staley Middle School in Sumter County this fall.

“They want you to be different and I tried to make mine different. I wanted it to be pretty – something that someone would want to wear,” Berndt said.

Hembree created her design when she took Sample’s class last year. The art education major, who graduated in 2011, is teaching at South Paulding Middle School. She recently opened Local Color, an art studio offering classes for children and adults, on Main Street in Villa Rica. 

The call from the Atlanta Track Club “was totally out of the blue,” said Hembree, 28.

Hembree started her design with a montage of road signs. “I wanted to do stuff that you would see on the road.”

But she decided the look was too cluttered and simplified the design, creating one red, white and blue sign instead. She used a Sharpie marker to write “Peachtree” and added a stem and leaf to the top of the sign. “To give it that Peachtree look,” she said.

UWG Finalist Talk About Their Designs

The UWG art students who are finalists 2012 AJC Peachtree Road Race T-shirt Design Contest talk about their designs:

• Caitlyn Weathers, 22, a senior
• Clarissa Robinson, 24, a junior
• Mallory Royal, 22, who graduated last year

They are three of the five finalists in the contest. Voting is open until April 30. You can vote once per day.

The winner will be announced on July 4, the day of the Atlanta Track Club’s high-profile 10K. The winning design will be printed on 60,000 T-shirts and the winner will receive $1,000. The other four artists will get $100.

UWG Art Students Finalists in Design Contest

For the fourth consecutive year University of West Georgia art students are finalists in the AJC Peachtree Road Race T-shirt Design Contest.

As in previous years, they are students in Clint Samples’ graphic design class. All took the class, Digital Media for Artists, last fall. They are: Caitlyn Weathers, 22, a senior; Clarissa Robinson, 24, a junior; and Mallory Royal, 22, who graduated last year.

They are three out of the five finalists chosen by a panel of judges. Since 2009, UWG has dominated the contest. It scored winners last year and in 2010 and fielded 15 finalists in the last four years.

The winner will be announced on July 4, the day of the Atlanta Track Club’s premier road race.

To see all of the designs and to vote go to:

http://ajc.upickem.net/engine/Welcome.aspx?contestid=50735.

One vote can be cast per day.

Samples, an associate professor of art, urges his students to submit their best work by revising and fine-tuning their designs. But he also prepares them for possible rejection.

“It’s like entering an art exhibition. There’s always a chance of rejection,” Samples said. “That’s something you have to live with as an artist. We have been blessed. We’ve had this great run of designs. I always try to use the previous years as a challenge.”

Weathers’ design is a flag with the bars and blue field made up of sneaker prints. She dipped several pairs of sneakers in black paint, then photographed them and used Adobe Illustrator to change the colors and create the image.

Her inspiration was the flag used for the opening of the race. “I wanted to include that. But I didn’t want it to be just an image of the flag,” said Weathers, who graduated from Temple High School in 2008.

“I was really surprised that mine was chosen as a finalist,” she said. “I think a lot of the other designs in the class were a lot better than mine. I was really honored that they chose mine.”

Robinson’s design includes brightly-colored patches in the shape of a peach. “I brought out my painting sketchbook. I had a lot of different colors.” She used those as a jumping off point and used the software to get the shapes and colors she wanted.

“I’m really surprised,” said Robinson, who graduated from Collins Hill High School in Suwanee in 2006. “This is my first time doing something like this.”

Royal’s design is a painted peach. Stars in some of the letters evoke an Independence Day theme.

In 2011 the winner of the design contest was Jessica Ferguson and two of her classmates were finalists. The 2010 winner, Allison Bennett, was also Samples’ student and three of her classmates were finalists. Two of Samples’ students were finalists in 2009.

Carrollton High School Students Meet their College Counterparts

A group of Carrollton High School students crowded into a graphic design class at the University of West Georgia recently. The teenagers had at least one thing in common with their college counterparts: art.

The students looked at their drafts for the upcoming AJC Peachtree Road Race T-shirt Design Contest and made suggestions

Beyond the “I like that one” comments, the suggestions in the critiques were useful: change the font here, move the image there, try another color, the letters are too close, the words are too far apart.

It was a first for the Carrollton students, said Clint Samples, an associate professor of art. Samples reached out to Mike Lewis, the graphic communications teacher at Carrollton High School. Samples hopes the visit serves as a recruitment tool for prospective art majors and both teachers want to collaborate soon.

Lewis said his students were “very encouraged. And that makes them want to try harder.”

UWG art students got a chance to pass on their knowledge.

“When I was in high school, I liked the fun fonts,” said Brittany Watkins, a UWG senior. “But as you get older, you realize that a simple, sleek text is a lot better than a really out-there font.”

It was an eye-opening experience for the Carrollton students.

“I learned a lot about how fonts influence the way your design looks, about placing things in the right spot and how that affects your design,” said Fernanda Lara, 18.

The deadline for the AJC Peachtree Road Race T-shirt Design Contest is Feb. 28. The July 4th race is a premier Atlanta event and in 2011 it drew 60,000 runners from around the word.

Designs by Samples’ students have been finalists in the competition since 2009. He’s had two winners: Allison Bennett in 2010 and Jessica Ferguson in 2011.

---

In this photo: Carrollton High School student Kelsey Lujan, UWG student Brittany Watkins (in the background), and CHS students Sydney Samson and Fernanda Lara.