Ferris instruc­tor William Culpepper assigned his GRDE 414: Design Seminar class with a unique task: project images onto a for­got­ten build­ing in Big Rapids to bring aware­ness to them.

The stu­dents in Culpepper’s class were assigned to one of three case study build­ings: the Old Gary Trimarco Pontiac Buick GMC deal­er­ship located at 101 Maple Street, the old Pioneer Press Building located at 534 State Street, and the old train depot located at 910 Maple Street.

“Each of these case study build­ings was care­fully selected based on their notable his­tory and loca­tion, in con­trast to their cur­rent state of aban­don­ment,” said Culpepper. “The build­ings will be thor­oughly researched and doc­u­mented by the stu­dent groups. The infor­ma­tion of the build­ings’ his­tor­i­cal use­ful­ness will be pro­jected onto the build­ing façade cre­at­ing jux­ta­po­si­tion thus illu­mi­nat­ing each building’s cur­rent potential.”

The build­ings them­selves were the inspi­ra­tion for the project.

“After mov­ing to the area, I noticed sev­eral empty build­ings around town that were either for sale, vacant, for­got­ten, unused or aban­doned,” said Culpepper. “Throughout the semes­ter we [GRDE 414] have been dis­cussing, writ­ing, and think­ing about graphic design and how it can make an impact on the community.”

“We are bring­ing aware­ness to vacant build­ings by pro­ject­ing images that help illus­trate what can be done in the space,” said Sarah Sawtell, senior in graphic design. “We are also show­ing peo­ple out­side of our pro­gram what graphic design is and how it can impact the community.”

The stu­dents in GRDE 414 hope both Ferris stu­dents and mem­bers of the Big Rapids com­mu­nity get involved with their project. The event will occur simul­ta­ne­ously at all three loca­tions Dec. 8 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The images will be pro­jected for a live audi­ence com­prised of any­one in the BR com­mu­nity inter­ested in see­ing them.

“By cre­at­ing graphic design that is pre­sented to a live audi­ence and estab­lish­ing routes of audi­ence feed­back (through onsite ques­tion­naire cards), the stu­dent will gar­ner direct audi­ence feed­back from the com­mu­nity in which they live,” said Culpepper. “The stu­dent will be able to ana­lyze and eval­u­ate the impact of their own graphic design on their extended audi­ence while con­sid­er­ing any improve­ments they may do in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions in the future.”

“Most peo­ple in Big Rapids wouldn’t know what graphic design is if you asked them,” said Sawtell. “It’s our jobs as future pro­fes­sion­als to help peo­ple under­stand what it is we do and how we can help busi­nesses, peo­ple, and the community.”

Students are really look­ing for­ward to see­ing how peo­ple will react to their project.

“Now that we have decided what our con­cept will be for our pro­jec­tion, it is really excit­ing to be doing a project that is large scale,” said Dawn Brink, senior in graphic design. “Because this project is large scale and uncon­ven­tional, it will have a huge impact on the community.”

“My group’s pro­jec­tion will show old news­pa­per arti­cles about every­day life at the train depot,” said Emily Ross, a stu­dent in GRDE 414. “Researching this build­ing has been extremely inter­est­ing because we’ve learned a lot about Big Rapids dur­ing the 1870s and for­ward as well.”

Brink’s group, who was assigned the Old Gary Trimarco Pontiac Buick GMC deal­er­ship, had a tough time with their location.

“It is really hard to find infor­ma­tion on this build­ing, and so we are col­lab­o­ra­tively devel­op­ing a con­cept that relates well to the fact that we can’t find any research,” said Brink. “We are still work­ing on the details of what the images will be, but we are think­ing that we are going to base the pro­jec­tions on mys­te­ri­ous unsolved crimes.”

This is Culpepper’s first semes­ter teach­ing in the graphic design pro­gram at Ferris, and it is also the first time this project has been used in his class­room environment.

“I would like to work with future stu­dents and explore other forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that move beyond the walls of the class­room,” said Culpepper.

To see the pro­jec­tions cre­ated by the stu­dents in GRDE 414, check out down­town Big Rapids Dec. 8 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. n