Jackie Akerley has been a fan of Fleetwood Mac since she was a child. She said her mom played the band’s music in the car when she was growing up.

Sami Albert’s sister raved about attending a Mad Hatter-style dinner party, where everything was so small that she felt like a giant.

Alison Emmel worked at a seafood store in Syracuse called Fins & Tails Seafood Store.

Liz Tosi had cravings for bone broth as a sick college student, but couldn’t find her desired remedy anywhere near Syracuse.

These four Syracuse University communications design alumnae were each inspired by details from their own lives to create award-winning design projects that won awards at the international Creative Quarterly competition. The winning projects will be featured in the winter 2019 issue and online gallery of Creative Quarterly, an international arts and design journal.

Five of the 12 winning entries were created by SU students who studied communications design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design. Several of the runners-up in the graphic design and advertising categories were also SU communications design students.

Jackie Akerley was inspired by Fleetwood Mac for her winning project. Courtesy of Jackie Akerley

Akerley created a coffee table book based on the 40th anniversary of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” album. Although Akerley said she has been a fan of Fleetwood Mac since she was young, she did in-depth research about the band for her project.

She said that her professor, Michelle Damato, encouraged her to watch videos of Fleetwood Mac performing live in the 1970s, for inspiration. Akerley paid close attention to Stevie Nicks’ emotions when she sang, the style of the band’s clothing and the performances’ lighting design.

“It was extremely helpful in getting a sense of the emotions behind their work, which inspired me to reflect those emotions in my book,” said Akerley in an email.

For one of her projects, Sami Albert designed products for a tiny food festival. Courtesy of Sami Albert

Albert had two winning entries. One of her projects, “Undease,” centered around a line of disposable, eco-friendly menstrual underwear made out of bamboo. Albert’s other project depicted a tiny food festival, which incorporated a poster, map and website. The trend of tiny homes paired with her sister’s idea of hosting a small dinner party inspired Albert to create her tiny food festival project, she said.

For Albert, the process focused on overall branding projects, including web design, advertising and packaging. She said that creating websites for her projects challenged her, as she was new to web design. She said her professor, Rachel Aubrey, supported her throughout the process.

For Emmel’s piece, she created packaging and branding for seafood snacks. She called her project “Fins & Tails,” paying homage to the seafood shop in Syracuse where she worked.

“I was inspired by the London fish and chips scene — how they kind of serve it to you when they would just wrap it up in a piece of newspaper and hand it over,” Emmel said. “I wanted to try and give the project an editorial feel and do some old-timey, country drawing illustrations.”

Liz Tosi was inspired to design packaging for bone broth after facing the flu last year. Courtesy of Liz Tosi

This time last year, Tosi was sick with the flu and craving bone broth. She hoped that sipping on a warm cup of the coffee and tea-alternative would nurse her back to health, but she could not find it anywhere near Syracuse. Tosi’s bout with the flu and the inability to satiate her craving inspired her to create packaging for a brand called “Butch’s Bone Broth.”

She aimed to make bone broth more accessible by creating a brand that could be sold on grocery store shelves without intimidating customers. She said that seeing SU’s design program gain recognition due to the award was exciting and well-deserved.

“I was thrilled, not just because of my own work, but because Syracuse was finally starting to get recognized for their design program,” Tosi said. “I really do believe that our program is so strong.”

The CMD students didn’t create their design projects specifically to enter into the Creative Quarterly competition, and didn’t choose to submit their own work for consideration, either. Instead, their professors selected which student projects to enter into the competition.

“I was really happy that my professor chose these two projects in particular, because out of all the projects that I’ve worked on throughout my four years there, these two were by far my favorite ones to work on,” Albert said. “I suppose it showed, and my passion came through.”

Published on February 5, 2019 at 9:35 pm

Contact Mandy: ackrayna@syr.edu | @MandyKraynak