The SUMOBOT competition is a battling robot competition sponsored each year by Gateway Technical College and held in the main bay at the SC Johnson iMET center. This event brings in hundreds of middle and high school students from all over the three-county GATEWAY district. Many volunteers from within as well as outside of Gateway help to. make the event a memorable one that the students look forward to each year.
One of the most coveted pieces of swag among the students and the sumobot community at large is the SUMO-BOT T-shirt.
The upcoming Sumo-bot Competition T-shirt was designed by Angela Christenson in Jodi Heisz’s Computer Illustration class.
Gateway Technical College, and the Graphic Design Department are proud to announce that Graphic Design Student Anthony Antreassian had his design selected to be the student handbook cover for 2025/2026 school year.
Anthony’s winning design was generated in Ms. Jodi Heiz’s class, and was selected by the GTC Marketing Department’s Handbook team.
Anthony received a scholarship for his winning design.
Students can look forward to seeing Anthony’s design on the handbook beginning in the FALL semester at your campus libraries , bookstores, and commons.
Students in the fall sections of the ADVANCED CLASSES submitted their 2025GATEWAY TECHNICAL COLLEGEDISTRICT-WIDE STUDENT DESIGN SHOW design submissions way back in October and November of 2024.
Members of GTC’s Administration team have helped us each year in the selection of the Show Identity and Direction… and this year’s show identity has been selected.
The DESIGN SHOW has been scheduled to run from May 11 through the 18th, in the Bay Area of the S.C.Johnson iMET CENTER in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. A gala AWARDS RECEPTION PARTY is scheduled for May 15th, with MUSIC, hors d’oeuvres, open labs, and of course the awarding of our panel selected show category winners.
The DESIGN SELECTED for this year’s design show (the item that received the most ordinal vote points) by the participating administrators was:
Jaden Hinds’ submission that captured color and a metaphor for creativity was selected for the 2025 STUDENT DESIGN SHOW Identity by the voting Administrative staff at GTC.
Cole Garland’s colorful and ‘illuminating’ submission was an extremely close second place entry— only 4 ordinal points separated the first and second place entries.
Jennifer Maldonado’s submission was a close third place. The analogous/ monochrome retro-feel poster illustration capture the idea of “doing.”
Bianca Leach’s planetary paint media emulation was tied for fourth placeMatthew Wilson’s retro “3D glasses” piece was tied for fourth place.
Please read the 2025 rules for submission statement sheet before submitting work.
We are calling for submissions to the 2025 Edition of the STUDENT DESIGN SHOW, to be held May 15, 2025 ay the S.C. JOHNSON iMET CENTER (in Sturtevant Wisconsin).
…get your work out there and seen!
Students must submit the following work:
A properly prepared Mounted Work (on presentation board, black board, or black foam core) for hanging in the SHOW EXHIBIT SPACE as well as
A digital image submitted for use in this website and for Judging. (PLEASE see the Submission rules for details, JPG image size, etc).
Submitting both items is necessary to have your work appear in the show.
STUDENTS MUST utilize their GTC email addresses to submit the digital portion of the work for the 2025 Student Design Show. [The form will filter non GTC email addresses.]
This is a link to the FULL PDF DOCUMENT [downloadable as well as embedded] containing the submission rules for students who wish to submit work for the 2025 Student Design Show. Please read and follow the guidelines for work submission. If you have ANY questions, please ask your instructors!
This is a link to the FULL PDF DOCUMENT [downloadable as well as embedded] containing the submission rules for students who wish to submit work for the 2025 Student Design Show. Please read and follow the guidelines for work submission. If you have ANY questions, please ask your instructors!
Every year I process the work for each Student Design Show, I make note of the trends that appear among the submissions each year. Certain work is consistently submitted, while other categories seem to ‘ebb and flow.’
Around 190 pieces were submitted this year. [We’ve had in excess of 300 in a very active year with high enrollments]
Qualifying student work was to have been created between Spring of 2023 (not previously submitted) through April , 2024. It may be selected from student coursework, or from parallel individual practice to coursework.
Categories needed to be made up of minimally 5 submissions to remain “competitive.” Where 5 submissions were not received, that category was merged with another similar or like category. (Since the Districtwide Student Design Show began in 1999, we have had anywhere between 7 and 14 categories in a given annual show).
This year’s categorical submissions (from MOST submissions in a category to the least) were:
DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION (~17%)
POSTERS (~15%)
LAYOUT (~14%)
LOGOS and IDENTITY (~11%)
UNEDITED PHOTOGRAPHY (~11%)
TRADITIONAL MEDIA ILLUSTRATION (~7%)
EDITED PHOTOGRAPHY (~7%)
COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGNS (~7%)
PACKAGING / 3D combined (~7%)
MULTIMEDIA /WEB combined (~4%)
Digital Illustration, Layout, and Posters have frequently occupied the top slots, and that trend continued this year. This seems to be what most folks commonly associate with “graphic design” as a practical discipline.
Photography “Straight Out Of the Camera”(SOOC) rose a good amount this year. While far from the 2010’s where it held the top slot, it almost doubled last year’s submissions. If we look at all forms of Photography combined, it would be one of the top categories.
Logos and Identity had a slight increase.
Traditional Illustration media had a slight decrease. This is interesting since it is also associated with what most people would consider a major part of graphic design.
We had enough of the COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGNS this year to once again offer it as a competitive category.
Despite increasing “gig work” available in video and multimedia (and some decent work), many students are still not choosing to enter their multimedia pieces.
We’re sharing images from the SDS 2023 Awards Reception on this site. If you have any images that you would like to share with us, Please contact one of the instructors and share any photos or videos from the show that we can in turn share with everyone!
Susan LaCanne lacannes@gtc.edu Laura Laznicka laznickal@gtc.edu Peter Pham phampete@gtc.edu
John Zehren of teh Fab Lab, Bob Kaebish, and Dr. John Thibodeau
The BEST OF SHOW AWARDS
The exhibit space
hors d’oeuvres
Laura Laznicka and Dr. Thibodeau
Welcoming guests
perusing the work
perusing the work
Attendees enjoy the food and discussion
Multimedia and Web display
conversation
The exhibit space
friends and classmates
Dr. Isensee enjoys the work
A student discusses his work with a guest
An Alumni catches up with Laura
Students visit and admire work
Faculty member discusses the eSports team
Community Art Piece directions
Magill Meinel shares the directions with attendees
In addition to the folks who have contributed their work and talent to the show (and their families and supporters), we’d like to extend thanks to others who helped us make this years “comeback” show a success.
