Academics
Campus
On Saturday, it was unveiled to the athletes, their friends and family, and the public on the windows of Jock’s Nitch in downtown Pittsburg.
Called “Sports Are For Every Body,” her project features diverse athletes of a range of ages, ability levels, and backgrounds.
“I wanted to show everyone can be involved in sports,” Serrioz said.
The project originated in a course called Inclusive Design started in 2020 by Professor Andrea Kent.
In that class, students learn user-centered design principles. It teaches them to focus on making the creative works more representative, user-friendly, and accessible to a wider and more diverse population.
“After seeing the Nike Super Bowl commercial ‘So Win,’ I was really inspired,” Serrioz said. “From a design standpoint, I loved the neutral photos and video, big, bold, white letters that stood out, and I used that as a jumping off point for my project.”
It was natural for her to partner with Jock’s Nitch as the location for the display: she works at the business, which often features athletes on its windows, and will be an intern there this fall.
She began reaching out to local athletes and invited classmate Addie Hinterweger (Overbrook, Kansas) to contribute her talent in photography.
Their roster:
“We scheduled them all for a photo shoot in the studio and it was such fun,” Serrioz said.
She then worked with Gorilla grad April Ahlders (2015), an in-house designer at Jock’s Nitch, to create large format vinyl graphics.
“Jock’s Nitch was very supportive at making my vision come to life," said Serrioz, who will work with Ahlders and Kent on Saturday morning to install them before the noon reveal.
“This is my first real-world project, not just a concept for a class, and it was exciting and taught me so much,” she said. “I learned communication – working with models, contacting people, and scheduling them for the studio. I learned about sports I didn’t know a lot about, learned about Special Olympics, and learned more of the technical side of design.”
“Now, if I’m asked to do something like this for real, I can do it,” she said. “It’s a great addition to my portfolio, and it’s also neat go be able to showcase these athletes and draw attention to what they do.”
Ahlders said that as an alumna of Pitt State Graphic Communications, she loves to be able to work with and encourage Pitt State students; Jock’s Nitch was where she gained experience herself as a student.
"We have been fortunate to employ several Graphic Communications interns to get them quality graphics and production experience over the years — myself included, as I completed my graphics internship at Jock's Nitch over a decade ago," Ahlders said. "Gracie is among the top of the students I have been fortunate enough to work with and has a very bright future ahead of her. While I provided production help, the design and ideas are all Gracie's to be proud of!”
Jock’s Nitch Manager Tom Dunn said the business enjoys partnering with Pitt State on as many projects as they can, and he appreciated Serrioz’s fresh take on this one.
“Gracie is an outstanding employee, so we were very excited to see her marketing vision come to life. She had a very unique idea on this project, incorporating athletes with different skill sets,” Dunn said. “It is a fresh take on something that we have done multiple times with high school and college athletes, so to expand that to the youth athletes in the area and to Special Olympic athletes felt like a perfect fit.”
Learn more about Pitt State Graphic Communications
