By Gray Chapman
This past weekend, students at SCAD-Atlanta participated in the “Generate” 24-hour art challenge. Beginning at 10 a.m. on Oct. 17 and lasting until 10 a.m. the next day, “Generate” had multiple challenges for students of any major to choose from. The purpose of Generate is, according to online press materials, “for the participants to face what is normally a multi-person, or multi-month task and effectively execute the same task in a 24-hour period with no advanced planning.”The concept originally stemmed from a sequential art event, the 24-Hour Comics Day, wherein sequential art students worked to produce a 24-page comic book in 24 hours. Now, however, the event has been designed to include students of any major, though students have the option of choosing to complete any of the challenges.Each activity relies on skills developed within the major to create a large-scale work. For example, fashion design students were challenged to create clothing designs inspired by Captain Planet. Illustration students had the opportunity to choose between the “Firebreather Challenge” — illustrating pin-ups for comic book artist Phil Hester’s Firebreather series — or the “Reindeer Magic Challenge,” in which students illustrate 12 pages of a children’s Christmas book. The grand prize for illustration students was the Wacom Cintiq, an interactive pen display. Second place was Adobe Creative Suite 4, which was just released to the public on Oct. 13. Students participating in the maquette challenge, which was open to students of all majors, had to create a detailed maquette (a small-scale three dimensional character model) and finish it within 24 hours. Second-year interactive design and game development student Joseph Miranda said his maquette was a shapeshifting monster that he plans to possibly use in a future game project. The maquette was a combination of an elephant, an angler fish, an ostrich and a raptor — and was the first maquette Miranda has ever made. “I’m used to doing all-nighters at SCAD,” said Miranda. “But usually you’ve got your iPod on and your headphones in, and you just zone out for eight hours. But this time everyone is doing it with you, and it’s a lot more fun.”
Third-year interactive design and game development student Andy Graf was also at the challenge, though he was “freelancing — I just go from table to table and offer to help people out with their projects,” he said. “I don’t get to make anything but it’s fun being here with everyone.”
Graphic design students could participate in the ING Half Marathon Poster Challenge, which was previously separate from Generate. Students were given 13 hours and one minute (because the half-marathon is 13.1 miles) to design a poster for the annual marathon and half-marathon sponsored annually by ING. Students also had the option of working in a team to complete the project. Third-year graphic design students Alana Dy, John Nguyen and Nandhini Mehra worked together for their poster design. “It’s a great way to be able to get real-life experience in a pressured environment,” said Mehra.
Dy added, “We’re working in a team, which is like the real world of graphic design, because you’re always put into it as a team. No one works individually.” Most students in the ING challenge were working alone, but the team described the benefits of working collaboratively as bringing multiple ideas to the table. “If I were working on this alone, I would be really single-minded about it,” said Mehra. “So it really helps when other people can bring different ideas.”
All of the projects are currently being judged by each department’s professors, and winners will be announced when judging is complete. The ING Challenge winners, however, will not be announced until January. The winning student (or team) from the poster challenge will receive a $1,500 scholarship.