The brochure for Broad Ripple's Spring Gallery Tour has a new look this year. It has been designed by Herron School of Art students Yi Sun and Piyamas Gomolvilas as a class project. Yi and Piyamas are students of Associate Professor Paula Differding. who teaches a Professional Practice class at Herron's Center for Art, Design, and Public Life.

Yi is originally from China. She was born in Beijing in 1977. Piyamas is from Thailand; she was born in Bangkok in 1980. Both are third year design students. They went through the process of designing the brochure exactly as a professional design team in the real business world would.

There were several rounds of designing, editing, and redesigning until the final version of the brochure was ready for approval. They had to stay within the budget, choose appropriate fonts and paper, and get quotes from the printer. To stay on budget, they chose two colors, but varied it with tints to make it more interesting. The result is an attention-getting brochure with a cover design that depicts abstract houses and people in white on a grass green background. Inside, foot prints meander across the page. The design reflects the activity of this evening, which typically attracts large crowds of walkers visiting the various locations. It's an evening to enjoy the Spring weather, the art, the company of friends, and perhaps a nice meal and drink afterwards in one of Broad Ripple's many excellent restaurants. The brochure features an excellent large map with dots marking the location of each gallery, and it is designed to unfold in a way that will make it easy to handle on the go and easy to read with a larger type face.

Yi and Piyamas both hope to have a career in graphic design; Yi's fondest dream would be to return to Beijing with her husband and begin her own graphic design business or boutique there. She likes to work on the computer and make up her own designs rather than follow someone else's. Piyamas hopes to find a good job in Indiana to be near her family. She prefers graphic design because she likes art and design and she wants to make a living with art. Piyamas says the experience with the Gallery Tour brochure has given her confidence to work on more challenging projects in the future. "I learned how to be professional, get my work done on time and satisfied my client's need.... I learned so much from it." Yi thought that the experience helped her reinforce the design process and meet deadlines.

The Broad Ripple Spring Gallery Tour will be Friday, May 12, 2006, from 5 to 9 pm. There will be fifteen participating galleries and businesses this spring, with offerings ranging form ceramics to jewelry to live music, photography, and paintings. There will be exhibits from locally and nationally known artists. The Art Center will host an exhibit of photographs by the visually impaired. There will be a free shuttle and a wine tasting with a different wine at each location provided by Cork and Cracker, 2126 E. 62nd St. Rouge, 6308 Guilford Avenue, will offer half price martinis that evening with no cover charge to people on the gallery tour, and Naked Tchopstix, 6253 N. College, is featuring half price appetizers from 4:30 to 6:00 pm on May 12, 2006, when you bring your Gallery Tour brochure.