Fit to print

Laney graphic arts department debuts two student-created magazines,/h3>

Laney Tower

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Laney Tower

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5 min read

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May 19, 2016

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Laney College’s Graphic Arts Department published two student-created magazines, ‘Hangline’ (left) and ‘East Bay Graphics’ (right). The publications were created by two teams under the direction of Laney Graphic Arts Instructor Daniela Nikolaeva.[/caption]The total is staggering — 1,152 hours.
That’s how many hours GRART 114 Graphic design technology students gave toward creating two magazines, ‘East Bay Graphics’ and ‘Hangline,’ this semester.
Olmy Rosenstock, a Laney art major, said, “Being chosen to be the leader for a team of designers on the ‘Hangline’ project felt very challenging yet it was extremely worthwhile when completed.”
It culminated in both an in-class presentation and ongoing work toward a 25- page color magazine. Rosenstock said he now knows the exact set of skills he possesses and the ones he needs to work on in order to make it in the graphic arts business.
Rosenstock also commented on how incredibly good the Graphics Art Department classes at Laney are in terms of value and cost.
Instructor Daniela Nikolaeva is a graphic designer with 25 years of experience in the field. “I have created magazines, newsletters, books, brochures, and other printed materials,” she said. “I love working with images, typography and color, so I wanted to create a publication for my department at Laney.
“We offer great classes: we teach people how to design, yet we had never designed a magazine in our department.”
Of her GRART 114 class, Nikolaeva said she assembled two teams of designers. “They did their research, pitched their ideas, conducted the interviews, wrote the articles, and created the layouts,” she said.
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The Laney Graphic Arts department published two magazines for the Spring 2016 semester, ‘Hangline’ and ‘East Bay Graphics.’ The first featured a wolf illustration by Dannel Aleman to show what students can do with Adobe Illustrator. [/caption]“It was a real hands-on project from concept to completion.”
She also teaches at the Art Institute of San Francisco in California.
“I had experience in working with students on publication design. At the Art Institute I teach Graphic Design and Advertising classes,” Nikolaeva said. “In my classes we have worked with clients and have created magazines. That gave me the confidence to try this project at Laney.
“Creating a magazine is a very challenging task. It requires a lot of hard work, coordination, and commitment from all members of the team. Funding such an endeavor,” Nikolaeva said, “wasn’t easy. I knocked on quite a few doors. I wasn’t sure whether or not we’d be able to fund the project. We were very lucky to have a supportive dean, Phoumy Sayavong, who gave us the money to print limited quantities.”
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The second included a two-page centerfold designed by Olmy Rosenstock[/caption]Nikolaeva said what surprised her the most in her students “was how attached they became to this project. Because I gave them a lot of freedom, they took ownership of the project, to a point that it became a lot more than a class assignment.
“To some of them it became an artwork, a sense of identity, a personal creation and form of expression.”
Gabriel Villaleva, a graphic arts major, said, “The GRART 114 class gave me the opportunity to create, to build something beautiful out of nothing. I was able to meet a band, Fire & Flesh, at a music festival and get paid to design their logo that’s gone international on their t-shirts.”
Villaleva also volunteered to be the team leader for the students who designed “East Bay Graphics,” when he said everyone seemed passive at that particular time.
Nikolaeva said teaching this class brought her down memory lane. “I can relate to that, seeing your own words and images materialize in a publication is a very powerful feeling,” she said. “It reminded me of seeing my first painting framed and hung at a gallery. I felt so much trepidation, pride and fear at the same time.”
Another graphic design major said this is her second-to-last semester at Laney and now feels ready to work to start interning and working as a freelancer.
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The second also included a zebra illustration drawn by Yukari Tanaka.[/caption]Mary Luong’s feeling about Nikolaeva’s class is, “while it is certainly teaching you a great deal, it could be confusing at first because of how unstructured it is while figuring out how to collaborate with several other students for a semester-long project.”
As the semester progressed, it was more satisfying to Luong, who acted as the layout master, taking the students’ files to paragraph and then making the links consistent using Adobe Illustrator and Indesign.
And as for any student who would like to participate in a GRART 114 class in the future, Nikolaeva said, “I’d certainly like it to continue. I’d love to see issues 2, 3, 4, 5 …10.
However, Nikolaeva notes that whether or not she teaches a class is always in flux due to her status as a part-time instructor.
“One thing I know with certainty is,” she said, “ is that I always care about my students and will be a teacher who knows all of them by name, promotes their work, walks the extra mile, and the 100 after that to give them not only knowledge and skill, but also a memorable experience.”