There is a fresh, new element to this year’s Career Fair on the Fox thanks to the work of Karina Cutler-Lake’s University of Wisconsin Oshkosh 2013 spring design students.
Each of the 12 students in Associate Professor Cutler-Lake’s spring design III class were charged with creating a unique logo for the bi-annual Career Fair on the Fox, which, this semester, will be held Tuesday, Sept. 24 from 1 until 5 p.m. at Kolf Sports Center. The career fair is held in partnership with Fox Valley Technical College.
Even though it was a full-class project to put work into creating a new identity for Career Fair on the Fox, only one student’s work could be chosen for the final design, which would represent the well-attended networking event on the UW Oshkosh campus.
Design major Katelyn Arquette’s original logo was selected by Career Services to represent the important professional development opportunity for UW Oshkosh students.
“It was exciting to have my logo be chosen,” Arquette said. “Career Services had talked with me … and having mine be displayed is an honor. It was great to see something I did come to life on campus.”
The logo design can be seen throughout campus and online. It can also be found on the green professional shirts that employers will be wearing during the Career Fair on the Fox event, as well as on casual T-shirts, flag pole banners, posters, signage, social networks and within various videos.
Arquette enjoyed working on this project because of the real-world experience it gave her and her classmates. She said she was glad to have Cutler-Lake to help her apply what she learned in the classroom. She said her professor was incredibly helpful through the concept and design phases of developing the identity for an event that traditionally attracts hundreds of student job-seekers and employers.
Cutler-Lake“Professor Cutler-Lake has had a strong influence on me the past two years. She has been really encouraging because I can go to her and ask questions. She is really excited about design, so much that is it contagious. You can tell that she genuinely loves it,” Arquette said.
Cutler-Lake’s devotion for design moved her to stimulate the fresh design challenge project by having a client for her students to work with. She said many art students go through their college career and only receive criticism from their peers, which is why she believes it is so important to add a third party. In this case, UW Oshkosh’s Career Services was the client.
Jaime Page-Stadler, director of Career Services at UW Oshkosh, worked with the design students sharing information about what was expected of the redesign of the Career Fair on the Fox logo.
“I was very excited to see what the students would come up with. We were looking for someone who knew enough about the event and we had a lot of good contenders for consideration,” Page-Stadler said.
In the past, Career Services had worked with classes to design pamphlets and brochures, but this was the first time that they approached a class and told them what they needed from them. Page-Stadler was satisfied with this change and happy with the new career fair identity that came from the class project.
“We liked Katelyn’s logo because it was so versatile; it could change color and size very easily. She followed all of the criteria we asked for, and it was different than anything we had seen before,” Page-Stradler said.
Cutler-Lake was also pleased with all the hard work that her students put into the assignment.
“Working with Career Services not only supplied my design students with a fresh design challenge, but the project also introduced them in a meaningful way to an important resource available for them here on campus,” Cutler-Lake said.
Fall Career Fair on the Fox held Sept. 24 on campus
Through the rebranding opportunity, UW Oshkosh design students were able to gain a real-world experience by working with a client and making connections, which is exactly what UW Oshkosh students who participate in Career Fair on the Fox will get to do Sept. 24.
“Career Fair on the Fox is for every student, it doesn’t matter what your major is. We put on one of the largest career fairs in the state, so students should take advantage of it,” Page-Stadler said.
This bi-annual career fair, co-sponsored by UW Oshkosh Career Services and Fox Valley Technical College, gives students a chance to network and interview with students and alumni searching for full and part-time positions, internships, co-ops, practicums, volunteer and networking opportunities.
New this year at the career fair is an Internship Connect event, which is held from 4 until 5 p.m. Internship Connect is an opportunity for employers to talk about internships followed by a chance for students who might be seeking internships to ask questions.
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