As a liberal arts institution, Bluffton University welcomes artists of all kinds, helping them find their career path based on their skills.
Senior Graphic Design major, Shelby Herrmann photo by Payton Stephens
Senior graphic design major Shelby Herrmann has been able to grow her artistic skills since starting at Bluffton. Herrmann works most often with digital PhotoShop graphics and digital illustration graphics but also enjoys doing pencil drawing.
Herrmann started thinking about art as more of a career path rather than a hobby when she was in high school. After taking an advanced art course and entering a variety of art shows within her hometown of Greeneville, Ohio, she considered taking her hobby to college and making it a career. Herrmann started out emphasizing her studies on studio art, helping her create her piece “Stop Human Trafficking” for one of her art classes. “Stop Human Trafficking” was entered into the university’s 53rd annual juried art exhibition last spring, earning the Lion and Lamb award chosen by Louise Matthews.
“What inspired me to do this was I saw the red sand project on campus,” said Herrmann. “I was struggling with what to do for this project, and I saw the sand on campus and was like ‘that would be really perfect.’ ”
As Herrmann continued her studies, she came to realize that studio art “wasn’t where the money was” in the art world. It wasn’t until being asked to design a website for a class project that Herrmann started to see a future in graphic design. The elements of branding and business that went into the process of designing the website gave Herrmann a sense of clarity in her vocational path.
(L to R) “Doodle Utopia”, “STOP Human Trafficking” and “Coffee House Web Design” all created by Herrmann; photo by Payton Stephens.
“I definitely want to work for a bigger company,” said Herrmann. “I mainly see myself in web design, which is not what I do now.”
As Herrmann has matured within her art, she has also worked behind the scenes doing the digital logos and illustrations for the Public Relations office on campus. She has been able to design graphics for the university website as well as those used on social media. Along with her job in Public Relations, Herrmann also accepts freelance jobs creating designs and illustrations upon request.
This year, Herrmann is helping lead the new Art Club on campus. As President of the Art Club, she has been able to take lessons she has learned throughout her years in Bluffton art classes. Herrmann has found more comfort in sharing her art with her peers and taking critiques, saying it has brought her out of her comfort zone in a nice way.
“With graphic design comes an element of socializing,” said Herrmann. “I used to be a scared little child that hated public speaking, I was so bad at it. In art classes, you have to stand up and show your work and explain why you did what you did, and then everyone critiques it…I definitely couldn’t have done that in high school.”
Going forward, Herrmann hopes to encourage young artists to be confident in their own work and be willing to share it with others, as well as help instill the same kind of professionalism within students that she has gained.
“Confidence is key because if you don’t have confidence in your own work, how is anyone else is going to have confidence in your ability,” Herrmann said.
