The Blitz team, from left to right: Gabriella Austin, Raika Kachwalla, Owen Reynolds, Viktoria Kangas, Nicolas Tschirhart. (Photo: NMI)
Identify a gap or problem, and find a solution. That’s one of the mantras of the New Media Institute (NMI), housed on the fourth floor of Grady College. And that mindset was exemplified through the work of the Blitz team, a five-member student squad that, last year, developed an innovative flashcard app, available now in the Mac App Store.
Developed through an NMI group assignment given in NMIX 4410: New Media Capstone, the culminating class of the New Media Certificate, the app allows for simple and efficient digital flashcard creation.
Unique, in part, because all of its functions are completely free, the app allows users to translate images on their Macs into editable text on digital flashcards, which can then be used to study for upcoming quizzes and tests. Fittingly, written on the homepage of Blitz’s website is the brand’s slogan, “Less typing. More studying.”
In addition to creating something valuable for their peers, the creators of the Blitz app picked up transferable skills, better preparing them to land and excel in jobs after graduation.
“The New Media Capstone provides students with interdisciplinary team-based experiential learning opportunities that help prepare them for life after graduation,” said John Weatherford, a senior lecturer and the instructor of the capstone course. “It’s always such a joy to mentor a team of talented students from various backgrounds as they work together on a semester-long project.”
One of the members of the Blitz team was Owen Reynolds, who served as the squad’s chief technology officer. A fall 2022 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a certificate from the New Media Institute, Reynolds is currently working as a software engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
“Getting the experience of working in a team and also working with SwiftUI, and just Macs in general, that was something, as a developer, I hadn’t really done at that point,” he said. “That was so valuable for me. It is great experience.”
Additionally, Reynolds iterated how valuable the teamwork aspect of the experience was. Despite some of the members graduating, he said the Blitz team regularly stays in touch. Primarily, they simply check in with one another to say hello and touch base on any educational or career developments. But also, they stay in touch because they “want to keep this project alive,” said Reynolds.
“We all really fell in love with the idea, just this notion of these really cool features being free for students.”
Additional members of the Blitz team include Gabby Austin (AB ‘22), a graduate of the Advertising Department, Raika Kachwalla, a student in the Entertainment and Media Studies Department, Viktoria Kangas, a student in the Journalism Department, and Nicolas Tschirhart, a student in the Entertainment and Media Studies Department.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the work done by the Blitz team to not only create the NMI’s first native macOS app, but to see the project across the finish line and publish it to the App Store,” said Weatherford. “Publishing an app in the world’s largest macOS app store is an accomplishment that will elevate the post-graduation career opportunities for each student on the team.”
Eating your way through local seafood cuisine along the Georgia coast may sound like a dream come true, but for a group of Grady College students, it was another day working on a class project.
The five students are in this semester’s New Media capstone class, which challenges students to build new media solutions that address specific client problems, explore and implement emerging technologies, or both. Cierra Cordak, Hunter Lanius, Sam Perez, Tallie Pietragallo and Carson Reynolds are creating a brand to promote local seafood within the state.
The Georgia Seafood On My Mind Team traveled to the coast with professor John Weatherford. (Photo: Sam Perez)
Georgia Seafood On My Mind is for proprietors of unique coastal seafood restaurants topromote culinary adventures in Georgia. The idea developed from the What’s the Hook? seafood pitch competition led by UGA’s Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant. The competition was designed to generate innovative ideas that support Georgia’s working waterfronts and seafood products. New Media Institute Professor John Weatherford and Terry College’s Director of Entrepreneurship Bob Pinckney‘s concept won.
Along with the Weatherford and the NMI’s Chris Gerlach, the team traveled to six coastal counties to curate content that will be distributed across the brand’s social media platforms. The pictures and videos will also be shared with the local restaurant owners featured for their own marketing and promotional use.
“There’s a sense that we’re not just highlighting Georgia businesses, but Georgia people and communities,” fourth year marketing major Hunter Lanius said. “It’s a lot more sentimental than what you might expect from a food and travel-promoting brand.”
The group took over 1,700 photos and 600 videos over the course of three days including pictures of the food, restaurant interiors and exteriors, drone shots and interview segments.
Leading up to the trip, the team spent time developing a brand. They created social media accounts, designed a logo, strategized about branding guidelines, conducted user research and began connecting with local seafood restaurants in the coastal region.
Applying classroom lessons beyond NMI
Tallie Pietragallo serves as her group’s Client Relations lead. (Photo: John Weatherford)
Fourth year advertising major Tallie Pietragallo utilized skills she has learned in other classes and throughout internships to develop relationships with clients before the group embarked on the trip. For her, the client-racing role was “a really rewarding and exciting experience.”
“I kept in touch with the owners of six local restaurants across the coast of Georgia and learned more about their stories and the connection they have to the local community,” Pietragallo said. “Being in Grady helped make the connection from the owners stories to their restaurant and brand and lead to brand storytelling though our social accounts.”
Third year advertising major Cierra Cordak is the Project Lead and is heading up the team’s website development.
“Getting to take what I’ve learned in a classroom and use it to create something that looks like websites I actually visit, and not just another project, that will be live online for people to discover and use has been so exciting,” she said. “It has definitely developed my skills in that area beyond what they were before working on Georgia Seafood On My Mind.”
The team started in Camden County at Captain Seagle’s Restaurant and Saloon. They toured the attached hotel Riverview Hotel, which was built in 1916. Seagle’s is the oldest continually operating restaurant and bar in St. Mary’s, and the team got a chance to sit down with server Neal Schroeder to learn about the restaurant’s recipe for success.
“It’s hard to beat when you get the food right off the boat,” he said. “You’re not getting some of that store-bought seafood from the freezer or that was prepared a long time ago.”
While they had developed a course of action ahead of time, the students got to learn on the spot and strategize how best to capture the content. Multiple members of the team took turns capturing pictures of the seafood while fourth year journalism major Carson Reynolds focused on videography.
The team captured both photos and videos to promote local Georgia seafood. (Photo: Sam Perez)
“It was super cool to work on this project from a video planning viewpoint, especially with the budget and the gear we were able to use. We had professional level gear like lights, reflectors, and microphones, which made shooting feel very easy while also being impressive and professional for the person being interviewed,” Reynolds said. “The multiple camera and sound setup was great to use and made editing really easy. Overall, from the video and editing side of things, this was one of the most planned-out and professionally shot projects I’ve ever worked on and taught me a lot about working with different equipment and editing from different sources.”
Next, the group headed to St. Simons Island where they visited Georgia Sea Grill.
On day two of their adventure, the students drove to The Fish Dock in Townsend, Georgia.
Sunbury Crab Company catches crabs fresh from the water outside the restaurant each day. (Photo: John Weatherford)
Next up on the itinerary was Sunbury Crab Company in Liberty County. The team tried their hand at cracking open blue steamed crabs and heard from co-owner Elaine Maley who touted the freshness of the restaurant’s all-natural ingredients.
“We get the shrimp, they’re local, and they’re never been dipped, so they don’t have chemicals on them,” she said. “A lot of people that say they usually couldn’t eat shrimp can eat ours. We gather our own oysters and we have have our own crab lines.”
For the final leg on their second day, the team drove to Fish Tales at Fort McAllister Marina in Bryan County.
Collin Russell started as general manager at the restaurant just a few months ago. In his time there, he’s seen how the local community rallies around Fish Tales. In fact, he says he sees most of the guests “anywhere from four to seven times a week.” What keeps them coming back? According to Russell, it’s all about the seafood caught just a few feet away.
“I mean, it’s just a fresh taste,” he said. “A lot of our customers and stuff will tell you the difference between our seafood and you know, seafood that’s north and south of here, is that the shrimp – you can taste how fresh it is. I mean that is always what people say about here: how sweet our Georgia shrimp is and that’s what we love bringing it to people.”
Just one of the dishes the team got to try while on their trip. (Photo: Sam Perez)
To conclude their three-day trip, the students stopped in Savannah where they met up with Robyn Quattlebaum, the proprietor of Driftaway Cafe before heading back to Athens.
Preparing for SLAM
Now, the team is combing through the content, editing pictures and videos, communicating with the restaurant owners to deliver the material and fine-tuning the brand’s social media. All of this preparation comes ahead of SLAM, an end-of-semester showcase that celebrates student projects and certificate recipients. On May 7, industry guests and NMI alumni from near and far will attend the day of showcasing, networking, reminiscing and interviewing job-seeking certificate students.
Editor’s Note: This feature was written by Sam Perez, a 2022 Yarbrough Fellow in the Grady College Department of Communication and member of the Georgia Seafood On My Mind team.
‘Tis the season of political messages. They are on every street corner and what seems like every minute of television commercial airtime.
Most political messages also include a political logo: a visual representation of the values, promises and energy the candidate will deliver if elected.
We asked some experts at Grady College what makes an impactful logo and the importance of a memorable logo in political contests. To narrow down the field, we discussed the two logos of the presidential candidates this year—the incumbent, President Donald Trump, and the challenger, Senator Joe Biden.
Those participating in the discussion were:
David Clementson, assistant professor of public relations. Before teaching, Clementson ran several successful political campaigns for Democrats and Republicans. He specializes in political communication research.
Kim Landrum, senior lecturer, advertising and public relations. Landrum teaches courses in graphic communication, messaging strategy and campaigns.
Kristen Smith, senior lecturer, advertising and public relations. Smith teaches courses in introductory and advanced graphic communication and public relations communication.
Joseph Watson, Jr., Carolyn Caudell Tieger Professor of Public Affairs Communication. Watson has more than 20 years of experience in public affairs, campaigns and communications, including serving as a legislative director and counsel for a former U.S. senator. Watson teaches courses about public affairs communications focused on public policy and politics.
John Weatherford, senior lecturer, New Media Institute. Weatherford teaches courses in digital product design and user experience.
Following are the general themes that were discussed.
Graphic Strength
President Trump’s campaign logo in 2016 was criticized and eventually abandoned.
From a purely visual perspective, the two presidential logos are quite different. The Biden/Harris logo is straightforward and focused, giving almost equal weight to both names. My eye gravitates to the E which is styled like the stripes on the flag. The letters are kerned, or equally spaced, so the overall look is balanced. The Trump/Pence logo lacks the same visual punch due, in part, to the number of elements with two names, a tagline, the election year, star detailing and a stroke. Where does the eye go first? Placed together, the elements don’t have the same finesse as the Biden/Harris logo and the design lacks a visual focus point. The campaign logo for 2016 had significantly more flair with its integrated T&P but it did lack visual clarity and perhaps that is why it was abandoned. Neither logo is particularly inspired but if I had to pick a winner, the Biden/Harris logo is visually stronger. — Kim Landrum
The Trump/Pence logo for 2020 is fine, but it feels a little homemade. There is nothing daring or original in it. I would advise against putting a red box around the words and then adding some stars at the top because it seems rote. But the stranger thing, from a design perspective, is the vast amount of tracking—space between the letters in both men’s names. “Pence” especially looks like something you’d see in an eye exam. There is a message about importance being sent in the size of their names, too. Both names have five letters, but Trump dominates Pence in the logo. By comparison, the type in the Biden/Harris logo is justified—both words are in equal measure on the left and right and even though “Harris” has to be smaller than “Biden” because it has more letters, the names feel like a solid unit and give the impression of an equal team. There is nothing particularly clever or daring about the Biden/Harris logo, either, but that may be part of the point. It looks professional and stable, and the implication is that their ticket will be too. — Kristen Smith
I have always been struck by the absence of a flag or patriotic motif, aside from four small stars at the top in the Trump-Pence logo, but it is important to remember that the current Trump-Pence logo was adopted after an initial design was widely criticized and abandoned by the campaign. The typeface for both is solid as is the use of the red, white, and blue color palette, but the flag motif for the “e” in Biden makes it much more effective in my estimation. Aesthetically, the Trump-Pence logo is just not as attractive. — Joseph Watson, Jr.
The Message is King
Several campaigns, both Democratic and Republcan, have used “Make America Great Again, before Trump adopted it.
From having run successful political campaigns for Democrats and Republicans, I can tell you that I have never put any thought into the color scheme or shapes or font type or any other graphical elements of a candidate’s logo. The only thing that matters, which I learned long ago from one of Dick Morris’s books, is that there must be a message, not just the name and the office and the party. Voters need a reason to vote for you. So, in addition to—and more important than—the candidate’s name should be a slogan or mantra or motto. A succinct message is more effective. For example, Clinton/Gore materials said, “It’s time for a change.” Obama had “Change we can believe in” and “Yes, we can.” Trump took the motto to new heights with the prominent messaging of “Make America great again,” which was also used by Reagan in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Hillary Clinton in 2008. A logo is worthless without a message giving voters a reason to vote for you. — David Clementson
Comparing the logos isn’t totally fair because the Biden/Harris logo doesn’t have their slogan, “Battle for the soul of the nation” on it. Actually, is that their slogan? It’s at the top of their website. It brings up associations for me with the Battle of Hogwarts—maybe people have other battles that come to mind but the phrase is heavy with struggle and myth and even morality. The Trump/Pence slogan, “Keep America Great” is hard sell this year no matter who you support for president. — Kristen Smith
The Logo Doesn’t Really Matter
Based on the most rigorous and extensive evidence across the social sciences that has been conducted testing on voters’ reactions to electoral campaign stimuli, we can predict undoubtedly that Democrats like the Biden logo and dislike the Trump logo, and Republicans like the Trump logo and dislike the Biden logo. If the color schemes and styles and fonts were altered, their vote choices wouldn’t change. Voters’ likes and dislikes are driven by partisanship and inconsistent attitudes, beliefs, and opinions follow. — David Clementson
Hillary Clinton’s initial logo in 2016 was criticized for its poor color choice and being too blocky.
Logos in and of themselves really do not impact electoral outcomes. But bad logos that do not reflect a campaign’s brand and serve its objectives and messaging are often indicative of a campaign that is not well executed. Ultimately, you want to select a logo that does no harm to a campaign and does not generate negative coverage or become a story itself as was the case with logos for the Jeb! 2016 campaign, the initial Trump-Pence 2016 logo and the Hillary 2016 logos. Boring is better than a logo that draws negative attention or has to be withdrawn. — Joseph Watson, Jr.
These logos are both perfectly fine and uninteresting as pieces of design. I care about good design as much as nearly anyone, and yet I couldn’t possibly care less about these logos. I find it hard to believe that a single vote will be influenced one way or the other by either logo. — John Weatherford
Hidden Messages
The fact that the Trump name in the Trump-Pence logo leaves no doubt that this is not a partnership between president and vice-president whereas the closeness in font size between Biden and Harris and the use of the same color in the Biden-Harris logo conveys more parity between the two with the flag motif re-enforcing that Biden is the top of the ticket. — Joseph Watson, Jr.
More Graphics Background (Bonus)
The typeface designer for Decimal, the type used in the Biden/Harris logo, is Jonathan Hoefler along with his team. Hoefler was inspired by vintage watches when he created this typeface. The Obama campaigns used typefaces by Hoefler & Co., also. The Biden/Harris campaign will not stray from whatever style guides have been determined by their design team because that’s what style guides are for—to maintain consistency. By the way, if you haven’t seen the Netflix show Abstract that features him, you should check it out! — Kristen Smith
Additionally, Reynolds iterated how valuable the teamwork aspect of the experience was. Despite some of the members graduating, he said the Blitz team regularly stays in touch. Primarily, they simply check in with one another to say hello and touch base on any educational or career developments. But also, they stay in touch because they “want to keep this project alive,” said Reynolds. 
