Kirsten DeZeeuw
Welcome to SMAD
SMAD majors at James Madison University have the best of so many worlds. Standing for the School of Media Arts and Design, this program trains creatives in four concentrations; journalism, creative advertising, interactive media, and digital video and cinema.
I concentrated in creative advertising as a way to stay connected to my love of art and design, and to pursue my dream of working in a creative and collaborative environment. In addition to my concentration, I also had the opportunity to round out my skillset by taking classes from the other concentrations like News Reporting and Writing, Interactive Design, and Media Law. Featured on this site are a few of the projects I completed in some of my favorite SMAD classes.
About the program
As a creative advertiser, I worked in small teams to create advertisements and ad campaigns for a variety of media. From determing and conducting research on target markets to writing stategic creative briefs and producing ads, this program teaches students how to create deliverables that are just as effective as they are aesthetically pleasing.
The Pop Shoppe- Capstone Campaign
Over the course of a semester, I worked in a small team to create an ad campaign whose objective is to reintroduce a retro Canadian soda brand to the US market. My group and I, under the "agency" name SMADison Ave, conducted preliminary research, made a creative brief, and created 16 ads to publish on a variety of media for maximum audience impact.
I personally used my delegation and organization skills to ensure work was fairly distributed and deadlines were met. I also used my skills with design and Adobe Creative Cloud to create 6 of the ads included in the final deliverable.
Content Marketing: AIM Toothpaste
My team and I were assigned to create a series of ads on social media for AIM toothpaste. After conducting research regarding the product and the target audience, we decided to use Twitter as our text, and create four different posts/ads to increase brand awareness, and increase audience engagement in posts.
My role was to assist in developing the strategy for the campaign, create mockups of an image ad and a poll, as well as help write the documents that accompanied this assignment for the final deliverable.
Slice of Kindness
This graphic was used on the campaign's Mobilize website to promote a community outreach event the campaign was hosting. The campaign was collecting orders of pizza pies that were then donated to local firefighters and EMT workers to help fuel those putting themselves at risk on the front lines.
Join the Effort
What better way to recruit volunteers who are comfortable talking to voters over the phone than on social media? This graphic was created to advertise the phone and text banks the campaign volunteers participated in to connect with voters in the area.
Early Voting in Wyandansch
When a town as beautiful as Wyandansch, New York hosts an early voting event in the town square, it would practically be a crime not to mimic its charming architecture! This graphic takes the cake for the most complicated illustration I completed in my internship, but it was well worth the effort to help raise awareness about how voting can be easy and accessible.
Web Design with HTML and CSS
Second semester senior year I decided to challenge myself by enrolling in SMAD 307- Interactive Design I. This course is a part of the interactive media concentration the SMAD program offers, and while I had very limited HTML experiene to start with, I was ready for the task.
Dr. Anderson taught me how to hand code websites HTML and CSS grid via the text editing application Brackets. After just one semester of classes, I went from a complete novice to making my own websites- a skill I am very thankful for and had a lot of fun learning. Thank you Dr. Anderson!
Portfolio Site
This website was hand coded in brackets to be a space to display a sample of my work. The multi-panel approach was a fun new process I was introduced to for this project that sets it apart from other sites I had created earlier this semester.
Tourism Website
The objective of this project was to put our newly-learned coding skills to the test. I constructed a tourism website for Harrisonburg that features the downtown area, James Madison University, other nearby activitys, and a small collection of my photography portfolio.
The world through my lens
Like many others before me, I grew fond of art from a young age. Even though it wasn't in the cards for me to go to art school, I made sure to continue to cultivate my skills into adulthood by declaring an art minor here at JMU.
My artistic preferences and style has changed dramatically over time, and at this point in time I find myself gravitating toward black and white film photography and charcoal drawings. Here is a small collection of my fine art work.
Into the Darkroom
When I declared an art minor at JMU, I never dreamed I would become so invested in film photography. Having grown up in a digital world, I enjoyed how film photography blends the systematic science of working with chemicals with the art of experimentation to perfect combination of settings that will create an ideal enlargement.
Before the Descent
Being a second semester senior, I decided to take the scuba diving elective here at JMU to try the sport out and see if I wanted to pursue getting certified. While it was a little scary at times, it didn’t take long to fall in love with the sport and the community that accompanies it.
Soon I found myself wanting to document this new hobby I found during the golden hours of my time here at JMU. I wanted to document the methodical nature of the preparation for this activity, so I used my 35mm camera to take pictures of this process with both the students’ and the instructors’ permission. Once the negatives were enlarged, I scanned them in and placed the images in chronological order.
"Tanks"
35mm film on glossy paper. 2021.
"Observation"
35mm film on glossy paper. 2021.
"Demonstration"
35mm film on glossy paper. 2021.
"BCD Prep"
35mm film on glossy paper. 2021.
"Gearing Up".
35mm film on glossy paper. 2021.
"Seated Entry"
35mm film on glossy paper. 2021.
Nightmares and Daydreams
This is one of my favorite series I have completely in university. Last semester I took a collage and montage class that was taught by one of my favorite professors. I had a hard time with the course content at first because collage style art is so outside of my own personal style, but after wrestling with the style, I produced some of my favorite works to date.
This project was an exploration into the many strange, bizarre, and vivid dreams/memories I have from my childhood, and was created by hand painting each background, and then digitally montaging the images onto the composition.
"Piggy Eyes"
Digital Montage, 2021.
"Ceiling Man"
Digital Montage, 2021.
"Worm Hospital"
Digital Montage, 2021.
"How Potholes are Made"
Digital Montage, 2021.