Glossy blue and gold scraps of paper, glue sticks and scissors lay scattered across a MVHS library table after school on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Several leftover cut-outs of thin paper letters sit in a heap by the side of a decorative blue poster. Two Art Club officers bend over the poster, gluing a few straggling letters on to convey a customized, punny variant of the question “Will you go to Winter Formal with me?”
In preparation for the Winter Formal dance on Friday, Feb. 23, Art Club decided to arrange an event where members and officers collaborate to help students with the creative aspects of their Winter Formal askings. Project manager junior Hannah Allegakoen explains that students came to Art Club for Winter Formal posters due to either lack of time or lack of confidence in artistic ability. According to Art Club treasurer Patrick Zhou, a few anonymous students used the poster-making Google sign-up form to leave a reply thanking Art Club for their free offer.
About half a dozen students asked Art Club to make their Winter Formal asking posters through the online Google form. Allegakoen helped to manage many aspects of the project, such as organizing meeting times and buying poster materials. Allegakoen was also responsible for contacting both the artists and students who requested help with a poster.
However, Allegakoen says that one of the most difficult facets of the project was contacting unresponsive people. She elaborates that sometimes, people who had signed up for help on the poster would not reply to her emails, which made coordinating the meetings difficult. Another complication that Allegakoen came across were false sign-ups; some students did not truly want a poster made for them.
Despite the challenges, Allegakoen believes that the project has increased MVHS’ awareness of Art Club.
“I feel proud that people asked [Art Club] for help and it helps us promote our place in this school,” Allegakoen said. “I know usually Art Club is within its own little community of artists and people, but people actually came and asked for help.”
Art Club met at lunch on Tuesday, Jan. 20 in room F103 to start their first poster, and completed the poster after school on the same day in the MVHS library. A handful of members and officers showed up to help with the poster-making. Members were generally given the task of making and cutting out the letters through freehand — which Zhou describes as the hardest aspect of the project, due to the inconsistencies between each letter.
“We told everyone to do separate words — everything had different kinds of font,” Zhou said. “So our main problem was incorporating [that], and making [the poster] look whole.”
Senior Monique Hung, an Art Club member, worked on the poster during lunch on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Her main task was cutting out the letters for the poster, and she also believes that keeping the fonts consistent was the greatest challenge Art Club encountered in its poster-making session.
Hung recalls that one person drew a font template and the other club members simply based their letters off of that template.
“[We] just really had to work with [each other] to create a font that would look good and be consistent,” Hung said. “I think that was a challenge for us, [but] in the end it turned out pretty well.”
Apart from the challenges encountered in organizing this project, both Allegakoen and Zhou agree that partaking in this project has facilitated bonding between members.
“[Poster-making] was one of our few events that people actually showed up to and it was really fun,” Allegakoen said. “It really brought us together as a club.”
