By UW-Stout News Bureau
The Applied Arts Building and Micheels Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Stout are beginning to look more like the campus creative spaces they represent.
This spring, the university’s School of Art and Design, housed in Applied Arts, has added several brush strokes of color and creativity to its main facility and adjoining building, Micheels Hall, which includes Furlong Gallery.
New, eye-catching door and window graphics greet visitors. Colorful furniture designed and made by students has been added to a lobby. Student art and design work is being displayed on a new video monitor.
“The School of Art and Design wants to improve visitors’ first and lasting impressions,” said Tamara Brantmeier, director of the school. “Through the use of signage, color, interactive media, creating social spaces and the installation of flexible art and design elements throughout the buildings, we can effectively create a dynamic sense of creativity and energy that represents SOAD and UW-Stout.”
The timing of the makeover is tied to the upcoming 50th anniversary of the university’s art department, which since has become the School of Art and Design. The celebration is planned for Oct. 16-17.
Windows on doors to Applied Arts have been covered with graphics designed by University Marketing. The graphics, an orange dot design, help indicate that visitors are entering a creative area, Brantmeier said.
“We are really hoping to create a threshold that visitors enter, one that visibly denotes our space as one of creation and innovation,” Brantmeier said.
In two office spaces in Applied Arts, large graphics cover interior windows. One depicts Orazio Fumagalli, the school’s first art department director in 1965, while another depicts a 1970s school ceramics studio.
The graphics were designed by Kelly Maiers, of Rosemount, MN, who is majoring in graphic design and interactive media. Her adviser was Associate Professor Alex DeArmond.
In the Micheels Hall atrium, next to Furlong Gallery, colorful furniture designed by a student has been added and a vending machine moved out to create a social space. The furniture was designed and produced by David Hillenbrand, a December 2014 graduate from Thiensville with support from the Discovery Center Fab Lab and students Graham Robillard, of Appleton, and Daniel Wagner, of Winona, MN.
“The intent was to design and place furniture in the Micheels atrium to create a center, a place for students and faculty to gather, hang out, do homework and have lunch,” Brantmeier said.
Also in the Micheels Hall atrium, a new video monitor displays student projects, including film and animation work and slide shows of student art. In addition, the monitor promotes upcoming events in the School of Art and Design.
As a final touch this spring, blocks of color will be added to stairwells in Applied Arts and Micheels Hall.
Undergraduate and graduate students in the Color Seminar class, taught by Kim Loken are finalizing designs for a color-enhanced central office for the School of Art and Design in Room 235 of Applied Arts. The class received donations of chairs from several high-end manufacturers. The chairs will be the start of a chair library for industrial design and interior design students.
Funding for the projects has been provided by the Provost’s Office and the Stout University Foundation.
Learn more about the school, which offers six undergraduate majors along with a Master of Fine Arts in design, at www.uwstout.edu/artdes.