jennstucker

The In the Round Speaker Series seeks to render visible the artistry, activism, and presence of contemporary Native American artists. This series features national Native American creatives who work in the BGSU Arts Roundtable areas: Fine Art, Design, Music, Creative Writing, Film, and Theatre, and offers opportunities to enrich the learning, experiences, and perspectives of all members of our campus and local communities. This project is particularly significant, given that many, if not most, of our young people and students know little about the Indigenous histories and presence that shape their hometowns and the Great Black Swamp region in which BGSU is situated. This absence of knowledge fuels the proliferation of erroneous, stereotyped, and harmful images and narratives that continue to permeate American society. This is especially true for Ohio, wherein there are no state or federally-recognized tribes despite the numerous Tribal Nations for whom this is homeland. Yet, the state has the highest rate of “Indian” mascots associated with schools, sports teams, and communities.

These concerns led to our work in developing the university's Land Acknowledgment statement, which inspired In The Round. In our commitment to go beyond the statement, we continue to seek purposeful and sustained practices that work to decolonize our institution and our respective fields and increase the visibility of Indigenous cultures, issues, and histories. Furthermore, we hope that Land Acknowledgment and this speaker series lead our community to collaborations and relationships with Native individuals and tribes in and from the region and beyond.

Landscape photography in these works is from my collection of Ohio’s Maumee River. The logo utilizes the type: Phoreus Cherokee by Mark Jamra. Printmaking elements are graciously provided by BGSUGD alum Jessie Walton (Cherokee Nation Citizen).

Certificate of Excellence Award
Digital Design: Social Media (Instagram: intheroundbg)
GD USA // 2022

Certificate of Excellence Award
Integrated Campaign
GD USA // 2022

Honorable Mention Award
Social Media (Instagram: intheroundbg)
UCDA Design Awards // 2022

Best of Show
AAF Toledo // 2023

Gold Addy Digital Media
AAF Toledo // 2023

Silver Addy Integrated Campaign
AAF Toledo // 2023

Mosiac Award for Diversity
AAF Toledo // 2023

Design Incubation Educators Awards 2022
Category of Service
March 2023

Certificate of Excellence
2023 Speaker Series Poster campaign(Design for Good category)
GD USA // 2023

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs

For some, I would imagine it would seem strange for a graphic designer to be interested in the administration of Higher Education. After all, my work as a design practitioner and educator is typically defined as object design (posters, logos, branding, websites, and other informational material). How does graphic design relate to Higher Education Administration other than creating marketing materials? As our world becomes more networked and complex, I have been teaching my students a different definition of graphic design. As graphic designers, we mediate a person’s behavior and experience to the world around them. We must challenge the behavior we need to see happen and the experience we need someone to have. How do we facilitate those actions? This definition is in tandem with the profession’s changing role and emphasis on complex problems, design processes, leadership, and facilitation (such as design thinking, user research, complexity in systems, and community-based design.) Higher Education is taking note of the value of design and applying it in many facets toward innovation and change.

The core of my endeavors lies in the desire to engage in relationship-focused methods and practices that improve and enrich life. Improvement and enrichment happen in higher education by design. Developing meaningful connections drives my ambition, and as the complexity of life intensifies, we must guide each other and become more networked to make worthwhile action happen.

Certificate of Exellence
GD USA // 2022

Honorable Mention
Creative Quarterly Journal #70 // 2022

Best of 2022 :: Graphic Design Category
Creative Quarterly // 2022

This is my mixed bag of work where I’ve enjoyed flow in the making process.

IMAGINE PEACE FOR UKRAINE
Graphis put out a call for posters to unite designers for peace for Ukraine. My submission utilizes the colors of the Ukrainian flag and takes inspiration from John Lennon’s lyrics.

Honorable Mention
Graphis // 2022

SEED COWORKING INSTALLATION
Cosmic Dance (2012) is an installation work located at Seed Coworking in Toledo, OH. This work was inspired by the AIGA Toledo Portfolio Review Day poster designed by Michael Gump Jr. in 2010. After discovering 105 remnant posters sitting in the BGSU Graphic Design Division storage space and requesting permission from Mike, I was compelled to re-purpose his work by deconstructing the posters and eliminating all typographic references to isolate purely color forms. These new forms were installed at Seed for cultivating an organic essence in this very digital space.

Since 2002 I have had the honor to work with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Toledo on their Barefoot at the Beach event materials. This gorgeous event on the shore of Lake Erie at Maumee Bay State Park is one of the largest fundraising events in all of Northwest Ohio. Every winter I get to work with the incomparable Billy Mann to develop fun and memorable materials for the summer event.

Through my years of working with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Toledo I was asked to design graphic panels for the recently remodeled main branch of the Clubs on Detroit Avenue. The work included ten 10 foot x 10 foot panels that included youthful and active silhouetted figures incorporated with typographic forms on each panel spelling Boys & Girls. There was also an eleventh panel at 12 foot x foot by the Club pool which incorporated the organization's logo.

Friend of Youth Award
Boys & Girls Clubs of Toledo
2004

Gold Addy :: Invitation
AAF Toledo 2002

Through a partnership with AIGA Toledo + MTS Seating in collaboration with The Arts Commission, The Sit&Tell Project is a multi-participatory community project that utilizes the metaphor of a chair as an invitation for friendship and communication. The project collected 100 stories as told by Toledo citizens as storytellers on World Storytelling Day, March 20, 2016 under the global theme of Strong Women. These stories were shared by many who benefited from strong women in their lives. After the storytelling event, the recorded stories were given to a juried pool of designers and artists to visualize artwork for 100 chairs. Each chair includes a custom URL to access the audio, the art and artist statement. From November 1 through 28th an online auction of the chairs was held to benefit art programming for youth through The Arts Commission. The project successfully raised $7,500.00 and I look forward to seeing the arts grow and thrive through these young minds. 

Platinum Award Winner
46th Annual Creativity International
Print and Packaging Awards
2016

AAF Toledo Award Winner
Silver Addy
February 2017

Merit Award Winner
HOW Magazine
International Design Award
March 2017 Issue

Outstanding Community Partnership Award
BGSU Center for Civic and Community Engagement
April 2017

Runner-up Winner (my chair 100)
Creative Quarterly : The Journal of Art & Design
Spring/Summer 2017 Issue

Design Incubation Educators Awards 2017
Category of Service
September 2017

American Graphic Design Award
GD USA
November 2017

Many of us are quite familiar with the red circle and “You Are Here” dot affixed to many directories throughout America. These dots are wonderful assurances that we are, in fact, somewhere. Funded by the City of Toledo’s One Percent for Art Program, and proudly presented by AIGA Toledo + The Arts Commission, the You Are Here Toledo Project (YAH) was a series of large one-of-a-kind outdoor “dots” affixed to various public sidewalks throughout Toledo to promote positivity and enhance our sense of place. Using the circular shape of a dot (at three feet in diameter); Northwest Ohio artists, designers, and students were asked to make a powerful visual statement in response to their assigned dot’s location. One hundred (100) dots mark the city, each containing a QR (quick response) code that allows smartphone users to learn more about the artwork, its location and its artist. For non-smartphone users each dot has the project’s URL for searching the work at their convenience. The project was unique to Toledo and showcased the amazing artistic talent and places of this region.

The You Are Here Project was created in 2012 and has been recognized in several local publications and has earned special honors like: Innovation Award ($5,000 unrestricted grant for future projects) from the Toledo Blade and Toledo Community Foundation; and Newsmaker of 2012 in both the Toledo Free Press and The City Paper as well as a national case study feature on AIGA's Design For Good website and AIGA's Facebook feature in March 2013.

Outstanding Merit Award
HOW Magazine
International Design Awards
2013

Innovation Award
Toledo Blade and Toledo Community Foundation
Awarded a highly competitive unrestricted $5,000 grant
2013

The Toledo Strategic Plan for Arts & Culture is a 68-page document outlining The City of Toledo and The Arts Commission's plans for Celebrating Creative Communities. My visual approach for the plan was to present a vibrant and positive guide that would be inspirational for the future of Toledo. The horizontal format of the design was structured in consideration for an interactive PDF version. Several custom collages utilizing Toledo landmarks were created for the plan. A smaller, 12 page Executive Summary and promotional postcard were also developed for the big launch of the initiative.

Winner of Excellence
GD USA // 2016

Silver Award Winner
Creativity International Print & Packaging Awards
2015

Silver Addy Winner
American Advertising Federation Toledo
2016

Design and the Creation of Value by John Heskett has been part of my bedside reading material as of late. I invite all of you to read it. More than ever I feel poised to advocate for design’s integral role in creating not only economic value, but its value in the human experience as well. These design quotes are reminders for designers and others about the process, thinking and meaningful purpose design has in our lives.  

Thank you to Interrupt Marketing and Gallery for continued support and for another invitation to share my work as part of the Red Bird Art Walk in Sylvania, OH for April 2018.

American Graphic Design Award
GD USA
November 2018

Silver Award Winner
48th Annual Creativity International Print & Packaging Awards // 2018

This iPhone (lo-fi) work comes from my "leisure" or at least from the point of when I have only set out to be somewhere. I am absorbing spaces and places that are meeting me at my eye; where a form, a color or a moment has captivated my attention from the other presences around me. I am finding my life especially chaotic now more than ever, so the forced symmetry in these works delights me with a brief resolve of solace. 

As a faculty member of Bowling Green State University's School of Art Graphic Design Division AND a practicing graphic designer, I value the moments when I can serve the University through presenting content as well.

The Division of Graphic Design in the School of Art at Bowling Green State University (BGSUGD) is a dynamic, progressive and responsive professional BFA in Graphic Design degree-granting program that encourages independent and collaborative thinking, creative problem solving/analytics and design, creative writing, design for the public good, exploration of alternative visual communication methods, and a solid understanding of modern professional practices. The curriculum reflects the dynamic social and professional changes of contemporary design and responds to them in a pro-active manner through a continually evolving curriculum.

Bronze Award
48th Creativity International
Print & Packaging Awards
Proceed + Be Bold Poster
2018

Merit Award
Graphis Design Annual 2017
Lynn Whitney Poster
2017

Gold Award
42nd Creativity International
Print & Packaging Awards
Shusterman Poster
2012

Nuts + Bolts, was a national AIGA Design Education conference held June 14-16, 2016 at Bowling Green State University for emerging and established design educators, administrators, students, and designers to strip away the mystique of academia and help build a solid foundational knowledge of discipline-specific teaching methods. Emerging and seasoned educators engaged in faculty mentoring and collaboration through direct conversation, with workshops, panels and sessions designed to help move careers, and the field of the design teaching profession, forward. Participants were encouraged to share their challenges and achievements with others, uncover our educational shortcomings, identify our responsibilities, and offer pathways to solutions, all for the greater good of design and the global community. Speakers included Audrey Bennett, Deb Littlejohn, Geoff Kaplan and Louise Sandhaus.

Check out our Nuts+Bolts intro conference video created by Chris Hatfield.

As stated by Louise Sandhaus :: "Response_ability was exceptionally well-organized with and excellent balance of food, fun, and fulfilling ideas that provided productive and meaningful substance to enhance our understanding of responsibility and response ability. The event included many of the most recognized efforts taking place towards ethics and sustainability in design education today including The Living Principles, the outcome status of Designers Accord Global Summit on Design Education & Sustainability, and included a working session on AIGA Standards of Teaching development. Rick Poynor, Rick Valicenti, and Nathan Shedroff presented varied and substantive perspectives on ways in which sustainability might be understood along with 4 periods of breakout sessions that allowed for varied and thoughtful perspectives and experiences from individual educators."

Award Winner
AIGA Detroit Design Re:View
response_ability Materials // 2011

AIGA, the Professional Association for Design, advances design as a professional craft, strategic advantage and vital cultural force. As the largest community of design advocates, we bring together practitioners, enthusiasts, and patrons to amplify the voice of design and create the vision for a collective future. We define global standards and ethical practices, guide design education, enhance professional development, and make powerful tools and resources accessible to all.

Established on October 1, 2007, the Toledo chapter was formed with the intent to connect Toledo area designers locally and to make a difference right here – where we live and work.

One of AIGA Toledo special events has been hosting a summer design show since 2008. The purpose of the shows are to give area graphic designers and artists an opportunity to flex their creative muscles in unique styles and formats. Aside from the Urban Forest Project, the Downtown Windows Project and the You Are Here project, the following shows have been some of my favorites to participate in ::

2010 :: Always Summer Show
(Favorite Song of Summer)
2012 :: Half & Half Show
(Physical & Digital Hybrids)
2013 :: Rock/Paper/Sizzle Show
(Album Cover Art)
2014 :: Popcorn Posters Show
(Movie Poster Art)
2015 :: Away With Words
(Book Cover Art)

AIGA Toledo isn't always about shows, in 2010 we proudly hosted a national AIGA Design Educator's Conference. We also present Design Hood studio tours, Adobe Workshops, Design Charrettes for non-profits in need and creativity workshops. Check out our active chapter!

http://toledo.aiga.org

These hand-cut collage works, Dynamic Monotones, were inspired by an obsession and passion for chroma, geometric forms and organic interruptions. Each collage is a one-of-a-kind composition from individual cut pieces of paper found in everyday life mixed with moments of vinyl, tape and India ink. Visual contrast, negative space, hierarchy, texture and value are engaged in a dance of whimsy and tension. Titles of oxymorons serendipitously capture the mercurial energy deployed in these compositional juxtapositions.

The spirit of my Dynamic Monotones works weren't quite finished working their way through my system thus I was compelled to create an alphabet series. Several of these letters have found their way into the collections of friends, former students and family. I hope the joy I felt in their making will transcend into the spaces of their new found homes.

The Summer Workshop for Experimentation and Thought is a graphic design workshop designed to give participants the opportunity to collaborate, create compelling, poignant work, and engage in some summer fun. And, as with all hard work, a little SWEAT is required. During the summer workshop, participants are introduced to an overall design objective where creative collaboration determines how the project will be completed. Workshop outcomes typically include two formal outputs of design making, from books, videos, murals to exhibitions.

This is a collection of some of my contributions to SWEAT Workshop projects as a participant and co-leader since 2007. To see the full body of SWEAT projects visit our website :: www.sweatworkshop.com

Silver Addy Winner
American Advertising Federation Toledo
2Faced Book // 2015

Silver Addy Winner
American Advertising Federation Toledo
Straight & Narrow Project // 2014

Silver Addy Winner
American Advertising Federation Toledo
Love-A-Fair // 2011

Award Winner
AIGA Detroit Design Re:View
elevendozen book // 2011

Official Proclamation
City of Toledo
Recognition for promoting city pride
Toledo Remanufactured book // 2008

My collage work is typically built by hand and hand-cut paper, but I do experiment in digital formats as well. My works are inspired by colors, form and content of my surroundings.

In Spring 2010, The Urban Forest Project planted banners by local artists and designers on light poles throughout Toledo. Each banners used the form or metaphor for the tree to make a powerful visual statement about the environment. Together they created a forest of thoughtful images in the urban landscape and raise awareness of sustainability and youth mentoring.

The banners were hung on light poles in a series of high-traffic locations in the greater Toledo area mid-April, in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. The banners have since come down, and are to be recycled into unique tote bags designed exclusively for the project. Sales from the product will benefit the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo (ACGT) to support their Young Artists At Work Program (YAAW). Presented on this page are my juried-in submissions to the project.

http://ufp-toledo.com/

Award Winner
AIGA Detroit Design Re:View
Urban Forest Project Materials // 2011