Designs by senior Graphic Design majors Jonathan Porcasi ’12 and Michael Puglisi ’12 were chosen for this year’s holiday cards for the President’s Office and the Office of Alumni Relations. President Carl (Tobey) Oxholm III and Program Director of Alumni Relations Georgene Pilling chose the winning card designs from pieces submitted by students enrolled in Graphic Design IV with Assistant Professor David Copestakes ’02.

The holiday card project is a tradition at Arcadia that spans more than three decades.
“The senior graphic design students are given the assignment in their Visual Communications course,” says Copestakes. In mid-October, Copestakes introduced the assignment to his senior class in order to get the cards to the printer before Thanksgiving.

“The Arcadia holiday card project exposes senior graphic design students to the real-world experiences encountered when working with a real client and dealing with a professional printer,” Copestakes says.

Students also visited Old York Road Printing in Warminster, Pa., where they toured the facility and witnessed their cards coming off the press.

Puglisi, whose design (blue card) was chosen for the Office of Alumni Relations, says, “The most challenging aspect of the project was getting my message across in such a small format. My design was inspired by Arcadia’s continuous efforts to expand and move forward. The snow globe is supposed to place the viewer on the new bridge of the University Commons, looking up at Arcadia’s oldest icon, the Castle. The message is that as we continue to look forward—especially during this holiday season—we are never forgetting where we came from.”

“It was a very exciting process,” adds Porcasi, “and from the start I was extremely into the project. Coming back from a semester in London, I was heavily influenced by my time abroad when creating the card. I wanted to create something that combined the spirit of the holidays with the Arcadia promise, of a global, integrative and personal learning experience. The idea was simple, a long winter’s journey, from the world and home again. Part of the project also included a trip to Old York Road Printing. It was a great learning experience to see how printing companies function—and to actually see my card in the process of being printed was unbelievably exciting.”