Graphic design assistant professor wins international award

For Clarissa Gainey, assistant professor in the Department of Art and Design in Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, winning an Abayomi Academy International Award has given her validation of her approach to graphic design at Augusta University.

Abayomi Academy is a non-profit whose mission is to unite multidisciplinary professions in promoting happier and sustainable communities. They work with professionals, architects and interior designers, as well as in the digital space where Gainey started to collaborate with Abayomi Academy.  

“It’s not just that one lucky thing that you’ve worked with, that perfect client who had the perfect budget, but it’s more about the methodology that you apply, and that people can see that it makes sense,” said Gainey, who teaches graphic design.

Her overall body of work was recognized in the category of intelligent communication and how it relates to happy citizens and smart cities, as well as how it works hand in hand in the digital realm.

“I tried to communicate a message that might be complex in a very simple way. It’s kind of streamlining and visual communication, and this is my passion,” Gainey said. 

The award came as a major surprise since she was up against what she called a “celebrity” that she’s been following for several years, and Gainey knows how he teaches and how it certainly fit the intelligent communication category.

Gainey, originally from Brazil, is starting her second year at AU. She said she loves working with students since they are down to earth and eager to learn.

She said with graphic design as her passion, she wants to instill in her students that their design work has to have the audience in mind, and that students need to understand communicating and interacting with people.

She said she has found that students tend to start projects by looking at them on a larger scale, and her goal is to have them narrow that view down until it really connects with the audience.

“This is what I want to communicate. Designing is about connecting with people at an emotional level,” she said.

The field of graphic design lends itself to collaborating with other disciplines. Gainey has worked with Marsha Loda, PhD, associate professor in Hull College of Business, so students can better understand that design needs to be quantifiable and have a rate of investment.

“There’s no sales without the marketing, and there is no real interaction and connection without the design. So we need to cross over those two disciplines for sure,” Gainey said.

While she is thrilled at winning the award, Gainey said she also knows the bar has been raised, and she must keep pushing with her work.

“I’m a curious mind, so I never stopped looking for things and wanting to understand them, and I’m fascinated by people,” she said. “As a designer, the more I understand about human behavior and the more I understand about the technical part, the more I understand about everything. That pushes me to want to know more, to educate myself more and to educate my students better.”