San Francisco art students to offer free design to non-profits

By Adam Martin, Bay City News Service

February 26, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - San Francisco art students who need thicker portfolios and Bay Area nonprofit groups that need new graphics, Web sites and marketing pieces have developed a symbiotic relationship.

Local nonprofit groups can submit applications to design classes at the Art Institute of California at San Francisco for pro bono work to be done by the students. Design services will be provided for free, and the students will receive credit for their work. The clients and services are coordinated through the institute's Community Arts Resource Exchange Program (CARE).

Institute spokeswoman Gigi Gallinger-Dennis said students have worked on projects as a whole class or individually for extra credit. They have recently done animation work for the Bay Area Wildlife Refuge, as well as a series of San Francisco Municipal Railway posters advertising the Heart of the City farmers' market.

"They had a great learning experience not only working for a client but working for somebody who doesn't really know what they want or how to communicate it,'' Gallinger-Dennis said of the farmers' market campaign.

"The students had to be almost omniscient at times.'' Gallinger Dennis said the program helps students not only gain profile examples, but also gives them necessary experience dealing with clients. "It's such a different type of work. So many of their projects are solitary. When they have to deal with doing something for someone else it's a different level of thinking,'' she said. Nonprofit groups can apply for service by filling out a CARE project request form, available at http://www.aicasf.aii.edu/news.asp.

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