“Ooh, that looks cool,” you might think to yourself as you flip through a magazine or cruise by an item on a store shelf. If you have ever stopped what you are doing to look at a logo, a poster or some sort of packaging, then a graphic designer somewhere gets their wings.

Ever since the first days of print, graphic design has been employed to pull your gaze and grab attention.  It has evolved over many years into what it is today, and its current form is on display at the Petaluma Campus’ Mahoney Library for students of the industry.

Santa Rosa Junior College students pulled together what they worked on this semester to showcase their talents in an event called “Design Matters.” If you didn’t already know they were students, most of this work could easily pass as professional.

Here, they showed off their works in different sections to illustrate the best of the best in many different styles of graphic design.

They had infographics to channel a mosaic of info to the reader in a simple manner easy to digest. Infographics are large format designs that tend to take a up a full page or two of a magazine or website.

Typographic portraits are even more creative approach to the idea of self-portraits.  The students recreate one of their own portraits using only text.  Having to take into account the type of font, size of letters and use of contrast to create an original composition.

Then you have arguably the most professional looking pieces, the fictional magazine covers.  This seemed to be a culmination of everything they learned in style and design to make you believe that this actually belongs on a store rack with other magazines.  It was so well done that I had no idea they were fake magazines until I read the description for the section.

The next time your eye gets caught on a font, a logo or just the way the text flows across a magazine cover, make sure you give a nod to that graphic designer for their layout.  As it looks, it very well may have been designed by one of your fellow students.

For more information on this subject, be sure to check out graphicdesign.santarosa.edu.