WENATCHEE — A classroom in the Music and Arts building at Wenatchee Valley College is filled with 35 desktop computers for graphic design students. The two-year program has been led by adjunct teacher David Hampton for 12 years, and in that time the department has grown from just three classes to offering 15 classes as an Associate in Applied Science transfer degree program.
“I encourage all of my students to go from this two-year program to a university,” said Hampton, 75 of Wenatchee, who himself graduated from University of Washington with a 5-year Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design, and then continued on to a professional career in graphic design for 40 years based in downtown Seattle before becoming an adjunct teacher at Wenatchee Valley College.
Hampton said that lately most WVC students go on to higher education at Central Washington University or Western Washington University, rather than University of Washington, which is “so huge that they get intimidated. When you reach into 40-, 50-, or 60,000 students, that’s a lot. Think of the population of Wenatchee,” he said.
“Before the pandemic, I had sold out classes of 18 students,” said Hampton. In the past quarter there were 18 students in the first-year program, but now there are only four students in the second-year class. He attributes this decline to the student’s reluctant attitude to return to the “rigor of in-person classes” after doing class work online during the Covid pandemic.
Hampton said, “Graphic design is growing amazingly fast, so it’s expanding, it’s not like you’re just doing brochures or a box, a package; you’re now doing all of the social media things, all of the web design, that kind of stuff that has been evolving for the past 10 years at a lightning-fast speed.”
“Graphic design is my life,” said Hampton, “When you retire, what do you do? You’re supposed to do stuff you really love to do, well I’ve been fortunate to love what I’ve been doing my whole life, so why would I stop doing that?”
Hampton said his professional designs have figured for Almond Rocha, Frango mints, Harry & David, and in over a third of projects offered in the Made in Washington stores.
When asked about curriculum materials, Hampton drew attention to the bookshelf in his office, which is a quarter of his personal collection that he is migrating over to be a lending-library for students.
“All of those titles you are reading are all different typefaces,” he said, “that’s because they are trying to project a different personality, a different image of the contents of that work, enhanced.”
Typography is a level 100 class offered next quarter, as well as web design for second-year students at Wenatchee Valley College.
The current Graphic design students have examples of work, such as poster art and three-dimensional packaging, displayed in the hallway of the Music and Arts Center building on the Wenatchee Valley College campus.
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