(Watch excerpts from my video interview with Adrian here.)

In our Student of the Month feature, developed in partnership with the Foundation for Graphic Communication Education (formerly the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation), we profile a promising student in a graphic communications or related program. The goal is to raise awareness of graphic communications programs, as well as help students get a “leg up” on entering the industry after graduation. 

This month’s Student of the Month is Adrian Martinez, a third-year student at the Illinois State University majoring in Graphic Communications Technology. Hailing from Chicago, Adrian got into the graphic arts via photography. “Back in high school, I had taken a photography class that had to do with a lot of taking pictures out in the field, and then taking them back and editing them on Adobe software,” he said. “Then in my senior year, I took a graphic design course that really made me fall in love with the idea of digital art and graphic design.”

He says he is more drawn to digital art than the “hands on” printing side of design. “I love using the Adobe Suite software—Photoshop, Illustrator, all that kind of stuff,” he said. “Obviously, I use that software a lot for my classes and my major, but at the same time, I’ve been using them for my fraternity, making graphics for marketing and promotional stuff that we would post on our social media. I found that really, really enjoyable.” Adrian served as head of recruitment for his fraternity this year, and had previously been VP of recruitment and public relations chair.

As has been the case with a number of our Students of the Month, part of the academic experience involves packaging, and in one of his classes Adrian co-led a team in a Make48 Packaging Competition. The class was divided into four teams, each of which had to choose a consumer product and redesign the packaging to eliminate plastic and make it reusable and more environmentally friendly. These four teams would compete with teams from other schools. His team selected a DeWalt drill bit set—after some effort finding a set that DeWalt was still producing. Finally landing on a suitable product, said Adrian, “we designed a simple box with a foam interior that fits the bits perfectly. We did a shake test to make sure nothing would fall out.”

Although Adrian’s team did not win the competition—but one of the teams in his class did—he still found it a great experience, “not only competing with other schools and other levels of the Graphic Communication Department, but it was just a great experience for all of us to learn how the whole process is of getting an object or a product and learning how to package it the best way possible.”

Still, Adrian doesn’t find himself drawn to packaging per se. “Academically, it was kind fun,” he said. “It interested me in the sense of mainly just designing the packaging.” He has also been able to use what he is learning in a color management class. “That’s a big part of the design aspect, what colors you use, what kind of designs you want to put on a certain type  packaging, and then inevitably getting it sent to prepress and then through the press itself.”

When we spoke, he was preparing to attend the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA) Conference and was keenly anticipating his first trade event. “It’s something I’ve never experienced before, a convention where I’m going into it not knowing what new information I’m going get out of it,” he said. “But overall, I’m just excited to go out to Milwaukee with my classmates and learn a lot of new things about the industry and just have a good time.”

Like a lot of people his age—and indeed a lot of people in the design field—he is aware of AI and recognizes the need to keep tabs on it and its implications for the graphic arts. “Especially in our industry, on the design side of things, being able to generate images that are high quality so quickly—it’s definitely something that we should continue to keep track of,” he said, “because as time goes on, we wouldn’t want AI to take over our jobs on the design side. Instead, we should have it be something we can implement into our jobs and use later down the line.”

Adrian graduates next year, and has started giving serious thought to what he would like to do post-graduation. He has been applying for summer internships in the Chicagoland area and has been looking for job opportunities in general. “My goal is to find a company that allows for that creative freedom that I love so much right now with my major where I get to go and work every day and know that I’m going in to do what I love, which is sitting down at that computer and starting from scratch with a design, getting a request from a client what they want, and I’ll just happily sit there and make it.”

We wish Adrian the best of the success as he heads int his senior year and out into the print industry.

Are you an educator with potential Student of the Month? We’re calling on professors and instructors to nominate students they feel are worthy of recognition and whom they feel have the potential to be tomorrow’s printing industry leaders. A nomination form is available here. Educators are welcome to nominate as many students as they see fit. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] with any questions.