Old Meets New at the Clemson GC 2016 Homecoming

October 28, 2016

View the full photo gallery here. Photo by: Anna Gehle

Written by : Haley Blair Jones

Clemson Homecoming is always a day full of excitement, orange, and regalia. It is a time when our campus comes to life with spirit. While most people are focused on other things such as the Miss Homecoming pageant, float building, or Tigerama during homecoming weekend, it all fades into the background of my mind. For me, the event that makes the weekend truly special is our GC Homecoming event in Godfrey.

I have worked each Homecoming event during my time at Clemson. The first Homecoming event was during my first Fall semester in 2014. I had transferred into Clemson the spring semester before, and I was taking 1040. I signed up as a volunteer to work the dye sublimation station since it was one of the only printing processes that I had used in class at that point. I came into Godfrey that afternoon ready to print and by the time I had left for the football game I felt absolutely defeated. Us volunteers had received a lot of photos to dye sub onto coasters and I had made some printing errors on several coasters so we had to remake them. I had become overwhelmed. I felt some doubt after the event—is this really what I should be doing? Am I actually talented enough to continue in this program? These feelings, however, slowly disappeared as I continued to grow in the program.

My second year at the Homecoming event, I assisted with screen printing Clemson towels. I came into the event slightly nervous. I was afraid I might mess up a lot of people’s towels even though I had screen printed successfully in 1040 and 2070. Thankfully, everything went smoothly. I got to see several people excited about the towel that they printed, I met some interesting alumni, and I felt more confident coming out and helping with the event.

This year’s theme was Clemson GC: Old Meets New. I was one of the few undergraduate students lucky enough to assist with the planning of the event. When we all agreed on this the me, we felt like it showcased the uniqueness of our major. We use “old” processes like lithography and flexography in our major but we also are always trying to bring new technology in, like adding virtual reality elements to our assignments or implementing interesting technologies like lenticulars or interlacing images.

One of my favorite features of the day were the banners that we had on the building. The first few banners featured famous football players throughout Clemson football history then transitions to one of our current players and GC major, Marcus Edmond. The design on the banners was a group effort between junior Taylor Cottrell, Dr. Tonkin, Mrs. Fox, and Mrs. Walker. For this year’s screen printing project, the planning committee came up with an idea of printing retro pendants. New graduate student Christopher Knox did a killer job coming up with a retro design that still reflected the Clemson brand guidelines. We created a timeline of old photos from past and current GC students and faculty and placed them in corrugate frames along the back hallway. It was interesting to see what Godfrey looked like before I entered the program.

I grew from being a nervous second semester graphics student at the first GC Homecoming event to being a confident student that helped plan the overall event at my third event. As the Homecoming event has evolved, so have I. I feel like I can hold a conversation about several industry topics, I understand how to run each press in Godfrey Hall, I can identify major errors on a job… but most importantly I feel that I can graduate from Clemson in May and say that I took advantage of every opportunity I could to learn during my time in the program. I hope that my professors can attest for my growth. Lastly, I hope that other students can learn to love our program as much as I do and come back to Homecoming in Godfrey Hall as an alumni in years to come!