Students at the Cleveland Institute of Art have turned a class art project into a free ticket to tomorrow’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions.
About two-dozen artists at the school created posters for this year’s inductions, which will take place Saturday night.
Xani Dean (IG @andillustrations) is a senior illustration major who says assignments like this one provide real-world experience working for a well-known client and that’s valuable as she plans her career path. For the Rock Hall project, the diverse Class of 2021 provided the inspiration for her design.
“Genre-wise, everyone from Kraftwerk to Jay-Z and Tina Turner is getting inducted. It’s such a wide range of genres, which I think is so cool. And I wanted to have each of them represented in some way,” she said.
One of Dean’s instructors in the illustration program, Jamey Christoph, says he hopes the project continues again next year to offer more real-world experience for CIA students.
“How artists interpret music visually was so important, I think, for the kids. I think you see it in the collection of work. When we crafted these projects, we want to leave them as open-ended as possible to see how students respond to the specs of the job, which are practical. Oftentimes, when you're working with a client, it comes down to just some loose direction in terms of subject matter. On something like this, it would just keep it open to let them interpret the 2021 inductees."
"The Rock Hall let them express themselves in the poster. The variety and all the color and all the expression are in full display. It's exciting to see," Christoph said.
All 23 students received complimentary tickets to this year’s induction ceremony, and their posters are on view at the Rock Hall itself. Limited edition prints of the posters, which are each done in a different style, are being offered for sale.
