In March of 2022, the graduating class of Fine Artists from Tampere University of Applied Sciences had their degree show exhibition Embers at Galleria Himmelblau. The degree shows are produced by the students in collaboration with the university and gallery.
The artists were Jonathan Carey, Natalija Dakovic, Janna Lindfors, Anniina Nummela, Isabella Presnal, Seyoon Yoon and Elizabeth van Schaik.
I was the producer and graphic designer during the exhibition, and here is a brief recount of what that meant.
As a producer, I was responsible for:
managing the student team,
carrying out communication between the team, university and gallery,
exhibition build-up and tear-down.
As the graphic designer, I planned and created:
the exhibition poster
the exhibition website
the exhibition texts
the exhibition floor plan map
the colour and theme design board
Management of the artist team included planning and implementing a timetable, setting deadlines, scheduling meetings and ensuring that tasks were carried out accordingly. Each team member had a distinct role, e.g. graphic designer, marketing director, curator and photographer, but the producer acted as a manager of all these roles.
For my graphic design tasks, I used Adobe Creative Cloud programs. I painted the exhibition poster in Adobe Fresco with a drawing tablet and made adjustments (addition of text) in Adobe Photoshop. I did the exhibition texts in Adobe InDesign - including the large exhibition text poster, the artist statements and the artwork descriptions. I made the exhibition floor plan map with Illustrator.
I had a fair amount of autonomy in the design tasks, but I would provide drafts of my work to the teams during meetings and get feedback. The exhibition production was a joint effort.
For the website, I used Wix. The website was an important promotional and archival tool. On the website, you can read about the artists and artworks, and access the virtual exhibition.
The design board was used throughout the exhibition production: including the exhibition space design, social media marketing content, artist portraits, the exhibition poster and the website. The design board included a colour scheme, example images, guiding adjectives and theme words, and initial sketches.
I additionally wrote our exhibition text and proofread, edited and translated all the artist and artwork texts.
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This exhibition project strengthened my leadership, organisational and creative abilities. It gave me valuable experience in exhibition production from multiple perspectives. It has fortified my desire to further my career and education in production within the cultural field.
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