To junior Jay Getman, family is a challenge. To junior Zhiye Jin, family is a feeling of missing something when you are not around them. To professor Renée Stevens, family is people caring about each other, regardless of relation.

Family is life.

From Thursday to Sunday, about 28 students participated in “Pixels vs Print,” a design workshop put on by the Alexia Foundation and the S.I. School of Public Communications to complete “Family. Life.” “Family. Life.” is a global collaborative project that combines different disciplines of art from over 60 participating programs worldwide with each piece of artwork reflecting specifically on a central theme of family.

“Grants and competitions usually reward work that’s already been produced and the idea was that, ‘Well what if an institution, both a journalism school and a communications school and a foundation, were able to instigate a project that made work happen?’” said Mike Davis, the Alexia Tsairis chair for documentary photography and a Newhouse professor.

“Pixels vs Print,” the first workshop put on for design students at Newhouse, was inspired by the annual fall workshop held for photography students in the past 15 years. The “Family. Life.” project ends on the 60th anniversary of Edward Steichen’s “The Family Man,” which was an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art of more than 500 photos that were grouped around love, children and death. Davis said he took inspiration from “The Family Man” in order to help create “Family. Life.”

Photographs, documentaries, animations and different forms of art will be submitted to final “Family. Life.” project on Dec. 31. Students ranging from high school to graduate students are solely responsible for the creation of the art. Schools from all over the world are also participating from countries such as Armenia, South Korea, New Zealand, the Czech Republic and the United States.

“This (is a) creation of something on a global scale that every student in our program gets involved with, so from the tiniest ground level aspect to the largest aspect of subject matter that you can possibly deal with, and create a community of people that wouldn’t have existed were it not for this project — to connect our students with many students from around the world,” Davis said.

During the workshop, students broke into seven teams of three to four and each had a task to complete. Four teams worked on the “pixels” aspect of the project, which included creating the look and demographics for the website and creating social media pages. The other three teams were assigned “print” duties, such as creating posters, postcards and the template for the photo book.

Mentors with professional design experience were assigned to each group, giving their teams tips and helping with their individual projects. Each mentor also lectured the entire workshop about certain design topics.

Getman, a junior information management and technology major, initially came to the workshop to observe and give his input about interactive web design. When a student didn’t show up, he was put into a group and was immediately put to work. Getman said he learned how to use Photoshop for the first time over the weekend, and as an IT major, it was eye-opening to see how designers work under stress.

“This is not my element. The mood is really energetic and our coaches are invaluable,” Getman said. “They all have different stories and different pasts to how they got to design for a living or how they design during their life. Without their guidance, we would be a little bit lost and floating.”

Once the website, posters and photo book are complete and have the contributing art placed, the “Family. Life.” event will launch by next spring. Stevens, an assistant Newhouse professor who helped create the event, said the work will eventually be viewed in galleries all over the world.

Stevens said the workshop has been a huge success, and she said the coaches have thanked her for the opportunity to work with the students. She hopes to keep hosting workshops in the future.

“We’re all like a little family now, and it’s amazing. All the students are all here because they want to be,” Stevens said. “Their growth has been incredible. I hope this stays around for a really, really long time. They deserve it.”

Published on November 17, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Jackie: jmfrere@syr.edu | @jackie_frere