Established in 2017, the GCU Ad Agency prepares students for careers in advertising and marketing by providing opportunities for hands-on learning experiences while working with real clients and projects. Students receive mentorship, collaborate with peers and industry professionals, build their portfolios and develop essential workplace skills. From 2017-2021, I led the full-time graphic design mentorship team that collaborated with and guided the graphic design students. Each year, we developed portfolio-building passion projects and coined the term Creative Campaign. Working alongside project management and copywriting, we developed creative briefs for Grand Canyon University enterprise clients such as GCBC, Lope Shops, Canyon Pizza Co., and the Center for Worship Arts. Creative Campaigns provide project development opportunities for the students, increase collaboration across departments and allow our highly talented creative team to innovate strategic development for our clients' needs. Showcased here is an eclectic collection of unique portfolio-building passion projects: A skateboard deck illustration featuring Mustang and Ford, a social media gif post for the History Channel, A font development process book and a strikingly bold, energetic cookbook collection of family recipes.
