Students Gain Real-World Design Experience on Rebelle Rally Project
Full Sail University prides itself on offering hands-on education to its visual arts students. Recently, several of the university’s Graphic Design students worked alongside the university’s creative department to design a Full Sail-sponsored car for the 2022 Rebelle Rally. The students assisted the professional team and used skills they developed in class to design a Land Rover Defender that was uniquely Full Sail.
Rebelle Rally is a women’s off-road navigation rally. For eight days, two-person teams drive customized trucks across the Nevada and California deserts, relying on maps and compasses instead of GPS. When a team approached Full Sail about sponsoring their truck, the university’s creative department, Platinum Creative, got to work creating a standout vinyl wrap for the car. They named the custom Land Rover the Dream Machine in honor of Full Sail’s Dream Machine, a 24-track mobile recording studio and teaching lab that ushered in the school’s beginnings in the early 1980s. Platinum Creative also selected several students from the school’s Graphic Design bachelor’s program to lend their time and talents to the project.
Full Sail’s Graphic Design bachelor’s degree program prepares students to jump into the world of professional visual arts after they graduate. Part of that preparation is the hands-on nature of the program’s classes: Students learn design foundations including color theory, typography, page layout, and interactive design to build branded designs using industry-standard tools and software. The results wind up in a portfolio that students can use to apply for post-graduation design jobs.
“Our goal for our graphic design students is to help them develop skills that allow them to create beautiful design solutions for brands from the ground up,” says Eric Rosenfeld, Full Sail’s Graphic Design and Digital Arts & Design Program Director. “Students base their ideas on sound research and then iterate visual concepts to come up with multiple amazing solutions.”
For the Rebelle Rally project, Graphic Design students sat in on art direction meetings and selected the design for the Dream Machine logo from Full Sail’s brand fonts and colors. A Platinum Creative art director took the students’ completed logo and incorporated it onto the vinyl wrap that covered the Land Rover. The student logo is featured on the truck’s roof, hood, side panels, and back spare tire.
The Graphic Design students juggled their Rebelle Rally involvement with their full-time coursework, and students were selected among their peers from several classes.
“The students who were chosen demonstrate great work, always come to class, and were excited about the opportunity to participate on the project,” says Eric.
The project took a month to complete, with most of the design work taking place in a final two-week crunch time. Shadowing a professional creative team during their classes gave students the opportunity to test out the time management skills they’ll need in the working world.
“Students in the Graphic Design degree program are in high demand on and off campus. Their design skills are a great complement to any creative project that requires visual elements. Selecting students involves finding students that are able to fit in additional projects to their schedule while still maintaining a high level in their courses. Often these students have already filled their schedule with additional freelance projects, so timing is everything,” adds Eric.
The guidance and leadership from Platinum Creative gave Full Sail’s Graphic Design bachelor’s students a unique opportunity to contribute to a branded design while observing the workflow of a professional design team. When the 2022 Rebelle Rally kicked off this October, the Dream Machine was able to tackle the desert with a logo that the Graphic Design students can be proud of.
