Rockford — For the next few years, when visitors cruise through downtown Rockford looking for places to shop, dine and park, designs made by Rockford High School students will greet them, and help them get where they need to be.
Designs by seniors Kyla Moore and Paige Vandenhout have been selected by the city of Rockford for pole banners in the downtown area. Kyla’s summer-specific designs are up now, and will remain on display throughout the summer and fall. Paige’s winter-themed work will go up sometime in November.
Kyla and Paige created the designs in Melissa Burkholder’s Graphic Design 3 class. City representatives visited the class and gave students a breakdown of what they needed: images to welcome folks to Rockford and to signal spots for shopping, dining, parking and more.
“They had a vision of what they were looking for, so it was a very real-life designer-client relationship. They were very open with their feedback and their critiques, and what they wanted to see,” Burkholder said. “They actually went computer to computer and gave all of my kids live feedback on changes they wanted to see.”
‘It was a very real-life designer-client relationship.’
— RHS design teacher Melissa Burkholder
After seeing everyone’s work, the city narrowed the pool down to the top six submissions before eventually settling on Kyla’s designs for the summer and Paige’s for the winter.
The two seniors were honored to have their work selected.
“It felt nice because I got to show everybody what I can do. And people walking downtown can see that,” Kyla said.
“It was really cool because I spent a lot of time on it,” said Paige. “It felt like a big accomplishment because it was something I put so much effort into and it was being recognized by a group of people that don’t know me.”
Dan Apkarian, director of public services for the city of Rockford, told SNN that the city’s goal in recruiting designers from RHS was to liven up the downtown while also celebrating students’ talents.
The collaboration worked out beautifully, he said.
“We were very, very happy with how it turned out and we definitely want to engage with the schools again,” he said. “It was a great collaboration, and I think something that the city really values is the Rockford school district and the talent that our students have and can bring to our community.”
The city hopes to get a couple years’ use out of the banners. When it comes time to replace them, Apkarian said the city may turn back to RHS to see if future design students have any ideas.
Building Artistic & Professional Skills
The Graphic Design 3 course where Kyla and Paige created their winning banners is just one of many taught by Burkholder at RHS. Kyla and Paige have taken them all, including Graphic Productions, which essentially functions as an in-house, student-run printing business, complete with its own website and a printer purchased with a Rockford Education Foundation grant.
Though neither Kyla nor Paige have plans to pursue design as a profession, they’ve both cherished their time in the RHS program.
“It kind of just lets me be creative, because a lot of times I’m just at school doing math or English,” Kyla said. “I come here and I can just express my mind.”
Paige said that through the program, she’s developed skills she’ll need in the future.
“It gives me experience for an actual workplace,” she said, adding that the program has also been an artistic outlet.
“It’s also helped me to just funnel my creativity. I take a lot of academic classes and not as many art-focused classes. So I was able to do some of that artistic stuff.”
Burkholder stressed that Kyle and Page — and the rest of her students — tackle their projects with the zeal of professionals, avoiding shortcuts and engaging with every step of the design process.
“They’re not just Canva designers,” she said, referring to the popular online design tool. “They’re actually doing everything, 100% from scratch.”
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