A team of Wartburg College graphic design students recently competed against undergraduate and graduate students from across the state to create a new brand identity and logo for an Iowa nonprofit.
Design/Shift, a daylong design-a-thon hosted by Iowa State University, provides student teams with the opportunity to tackle real branding projects while simultaneously offering 12 nonprofits logos and brand identities they can begin using immediately.
Leo Burk, Frida Figueroa, Rishita Gathala, Abby Hume and Elise Sandbeck represented Wartburg under the direction of Marwa Elkashif, assistant professor of graphic design. They were tasked with developing a new logo for The Winterset Stage, a community theater organization with opportunities for people of all ages.
Throughout the day, the team moved through the full design process, using a project brief and information provided by the client as the foundation for their concept development and final presentation.
“Experiences like Design/Shift give students learning opportunities that are difficult to replicate in the classroom. They work with real project constraints, respond to a client brief and make design decisions in a fast-paced setting,” Elkashif said. “This hands-on experience helps them strengthen their problem-solving skills, build confidence in presenting ideas and understand how design works in a professional context. It also allows students use their skills to support nonprofit organizations and contribute to their communities through design, aligning with Wartburg College’s mission of leadership, service and community engagement.”
In the week leading up to the competition, Sandbeck said the team put together mockups of business cards, apparel and other items that could be branded with their design from the day.
“That morning we got a packet from The Winterset Stage that had information about their current logo and what they wanted to keep from their current branding. We spent the rest of the morning brainstorming ideas and logo designs. We each sketched out some of our ideas, and then we would come back together and give each other feedback and then flesh out the designs a little more,” Sandbeck said. “When we agreed on our design, one of us had to create the digital version since everything to that point was on paper.”
The rest of the team used the selected color palette to prep a website, theater ticket, program, T-shirt, business cards, pins and canvas tote bag for the final presentation, which was given in front of all teams and a panel of 12 judges.
Though the Wartburg team’s design was not selected, Sandbeck said she would love to participate in this competition or others like it in the future. “The opportunity to work with a team and the real-world experience we got was really helpful,” Sandbeck said. “And it was really interesting to see what the older students submitted because of what they have been learning and the different skills they brought to their designs.”
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