Niner Designers stamps tote bags during an on-campus event.
Niner Designers is a UNC Charlotte graphic design student organization that offers a community space for those who want learning and career development opportunities. This space ultimately remains valuable for the up-and-coming graphic design department on campus, which seeks to expand its events and academic and professional opportunities in the upcoming year.
After a year in the club, President and fourth-year graphic design student, Franchesca Gatti explains why she wanted to take on leadership in a new era of the club’s history.
“I begged for (a leadership role) because I thought it was super exciting. The club was kind of in a weird middle stage where Niner Designers used to be a chapter of AIGA (Association of Illustrators and Graphic Artists,)” said Gatti.
With the Niner Designers starting anew, the goals and ideas surrounding the club had to shift to regain traction. This year, the club aims to grow in terms of involvement inside and outside the organization.
“With the separation from AIGA a couple of years back, (Niner Designers) kind of started brand new, and I think the first year we were in the club, it was building momentum to try to get people more interested–. More of our purpose with the club is giving it a legacy for the graphic design department,” said the club’s vice President, Savannah Demao, a fourth-year graphic design student.
The club plans to add more events to its roster in the coming year to encourage students to join. In addition, they want to acknowledge faculty and alumns in the future. They plan to hold an Oscar-like awards event where people would get recognition for their hard work.
“We were thinking of asking the faculty and professors to do like superlatives to pick some MVP’s, because there is not a ton of opportunities for recognition.Like sometimes if there is a good design it gets pinned to the cork board.Just to give the opportunity for students to feel recognized and for the professors to congratulate everyone and like whoever has had the most growth, anything like that. Also to award the alumni for cutting out the time of their day to come and speak to us,” said Gatti.
Gatti reflects on her time as a member of Niner Designers and hopes to bring more to the club as its president.
“(Savannah and I) helped out with the alumni event that we do every year where we invite all of the graphic designers that graduated to come back. It is really interesting because sometimes they are still doing graphic design, sometimes they have completely pivoted or like there are a couple that are CEO’s or creative directors that are in charge of really cool stuff,” said Gatti.
They held an event last year at which the CEO of Black Wednesday spoke about the traits of a graphic designer and how that opened her into the world of entrepreneurship. This is relevant as many students have to choose between freelance, in-house or agency work.
As modern technology constantly evolves, Niner Designers seeks to fill empty spaces throughout campus as a learning center for contemporary graphic design applications throughout campus.
“The stuff with AI had come out, with chatGBT being big and then AI got integrated into pretty much all of the Adobe products. There was this tide that our professors arekind of too old to know about. We would ask them and they just hadn’t heard of it yet or anything. So the dynamic kind of shifted in the major where there needed to be a place for youthful and modern development in graphic design. At least my vision for the club is to have more space for learning about the modern development in graphic design,” said Gatti.
Niner Designers also serves as a one-stop shop for various groups and organizations around campus that need graphic design services.
“It’s like a weird intersection of clubs where you do have professional development, it is a social club and there are opportunities.In the past we’ve done logos, we get sent a lot of opportunities by like graphic design professors. Different groups will reach out on campus,” said Demao.
The club also provides a tight-knit community environment for creative individuals seeking their way.
“A lot of people who come to our club know a lot of alumni in graphic design, know the things that they have struggled with and the things that they were more successful with. Building that awareness and also the network of other graphic designers, because I feel like a lot of the time, especially in the arts, people are kind of ‘every man for themself,’ especially when they graduate, and they don’t have to do that. It is nice to have a network that you are going out with,” said Demao.
Niner Designers stands out from other creative organizations as the face of the graphic design department, welcoming newcomers and anyone interested in branching out.
“We are like a jack of all trades, kind of trying to do it all.The graphic design program, I don’t think was officially its own department until recently. It is really fast growing, we don’t have enough professors, and we have a ton of students,” said Gatti.
Demao and Gatti seek to bring more modern eyes to the graphic design community on campus, which is surrounded by the fast-paced, moving industry.
“It’s an interesting industry because I can’t exactly say that it is growing, but it is changing due to AI. Like UX, UI, designing apps and websites is always going to be a super marketable skill, so I think a lot of people that are creative are gravitating to graphic design; so, we are trying to fill that need,” said Gatti.
More information about Niner Designers can be found on their Instagram, @cltninerdesigners
