as a resident assistant at st. john’s university for three years, i have had a lot of tasks thrown my way in my tenure. but for my last semester, i received an opportunity that actually allowed me to apply what i learned while earning my bfa at the school.

under the direction of residence life associate director jason bartlett, my task was to create new posters and signage to inform residents to submit their housing deposits for the next school year, and to make them visually interesting. a lot of the marketing material at st. john’s uses the same photographs and the same basic templates for almost every occasion, which we both agreed that we did not want to default to. the dorm buildings themselves aren’t very remarkable structures, but the founder’s village – or “townhouses” as many students call them – features apartment-style living situations with a nice courtyard and stone archway at the base of each house. everyone wants to live there, and everyone loves the look and appeal of them, so i decided to capitalize on that. the poster and its rough draft versions feature freehand vector drawings of one of these archways, image tracing effects that preserve some of the smaller details of my reference photo, and pops of color that make them stand out amongst the sea of posters that get tacked up around campus.