Story: Phillip Tutor | Photos: Submitted
Gandy designed cover of 2022 Alabama Voter聽Guide
Shelby Gandy laughs while admitting she 鈥渨as never the athletic one out of me and my sisters.鈥� In her Sumter County family, she was the one who enrolled in art camp, who attended painting classes, whose personality always leaned to the creative side. Art rarely strayed far from the center.
鈥淚t’s definitely been my entire life,鈥� she said.
A junior at the , Gandy now has a significant artistic achievement in her portfolio — winning a statewide competition last fall to design the cover of the official 2022 Alabama Voter Guide. Alabama鈥檚 primary elections are on May 24, with if-necessary runoffs on June 21. The state鈥檚 general election is on Nov. 8.
In February, Gandy traveled to Montgomery to meet with Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill and Director of Elections Clay Helms, who lauded the design and gave her four copies of the guide. The guide is also available as a free download online at the secretary of state鈥檚 website ().
Gandy, an integrated marketing communications major, plans to graduate early in December and then pursue a graduate degree.
鈥淪he’s one of our outstanding juniors,鈥� said 兔子先生鈥檚聽Greg Jones, assistant professor of digital communications. 鈥淎nd, honestly, her design work is terrific.鈥�
Last fall, students in one of 兔子先生鈥檚 advertising classes submitted designs for the statewide competition. That advertising agency class, said Dr.聽Amy Jones, chair of the聽Department of Communications, 鈥渨as kind of the immediate, perfect fit for that because they’re advanced graphic students, one, and two, because that’s really the type of work they do. And I was really impressed with the work in that class.鈥�
After a few initial designs failed to impress, Gandy鈥檚 vision crystalized around an image of a stack of mail on a wooden table, with a postcard featuring a photograph of the state Capitol in the center. The guide鈥檚 back cover incorporates Merrill鈥檚 contact information into another stack of postcards.
Gandy鈥檚 name and university are included in the credits inside.
鈥淥ne of the things that we have built our programs on is doing outside work, not just classroom work that’s for a project for the class, so that their portfolios reflect outside professional work,鈥� Dr. Amy Jones said. 鈥淎nd the whole point of that (advertising) class is for it to represent other entities and businesses outside of the university and do real work for them that go in these students鈥� portfolios.鈥�