2006

VENT

VENT is the student graphic design club at the University of North Texas.

When I came to UNT in 2001 VENT was a very new organization started by student Mark Searcy. Mark soon graduated and Eric Wagliardo took over control.

At the time VENT held monthly meetings with speakers from the Dallas professional community. Attendance was low because of the amount of homework the students had and VENT didn't really do a whole lot.

When Eric left nobody really stepped up and it was kind of left in my control. However even though I was active in the club I wasn't actually in the design program at that time. So VENT died for a couple years.

Then in early 2006 with the help of my friend Ryan Cole we restarted VENT. Learning from the problems I'd seen before, we refocused VENT on what I believed was most important: connecting students across all levels of the design program. Sophomores got to know Seniors got to know Juniors: it became about building a social network of designers that will help you for the rest of your life.

We accomplished this in a couple of ways:

The first was a website with news, resources and most important a community message board. The message board has been a huge success, students and faculty both use it to communicate all the time. People post cool links, local events, problems with classes, things for sale and work for critique.

The second way is having what we call Creative Lunch once a week at a local bar. Every Friday around noon we have these informal meetings where everyone is invited to participate. People from all levels of the program attend and meet in person. A lot of times there will be informal critiques of work. Sometimes we have alumni or professionals stop by to hang out and talk to the students. The reason I believe this works better than monthly meetings is because of how casual and frequent it is. If you miss one it's not a big deal, there is another one next week.

The logo

Click to enlarge

This is the forum

Visit the VENT website.

Spring Poster Series
When we restarted VENT Ryan and I did these posters to raise awareness of the club and the new website. We put them all over the art building.

Fall Poster
Just to keep people interested we've tried to do a new poster every semester. This is the poster for Fall 2006. It's a 1 color screen print edition of 30.

VENT Events
In addition to our weekly lunches VENT hosts a number of unique events and projects.

Students applying to the entry review often have very little idea what to expect and professors are not allowed to help them prepare because it would create an unfair situation. So VENT organized a pre-entry review critique where students in the design program helped those who were applying. I don't know for sure, but I don't think anyone who came failed the review.

Ventilate meet and greet picnic in the park.
Credits
Ben Barry - Designer / Organizer
Ryan Cole - Ideation / Organizer
Adam Holmes - Event Planner