It was a school assignment, but one that became personal for Eileen O’Neill, a senior at Oak Lawn Community High School who will graduate Thursday.
The poster she designed about the dangers of drugs and alcohol ended up winning the Computer Graphic Design prize in the Alcohol/Drug Prevention Poster Contest sponsored by Illinois Churches in Action, a nonprofit group based in Springfield. The prize was an Amazon Fire 11 tablet.
“I found it kind of interesting because my family has had a history of different kinds of drug abuses, so doing a poster about it was nice,” O’Neill said. “It hit a little bit closer to home.”
The 8.5 x 11 inch poster, shows a girl smoking and mulling drug sales on her phone with the caption, “DRUGS: The leading cause of depression and death.” She and classmates in Graphic Design 2, an elective at OLCHS, created posters for the contest, which included a graphic design category for the first time this year.
O’Neill already was accustomed to turning her passions into artwork. She began drawing in the fifth grade but incorporating graphic design elements was a new experience for her.
“The fact that I got to use a lot more of my artwork than usual for a poster was pretty nice,” she said.
Among the perks of the elective class are the T-shirts, keychains and other trinkets with logos they create as part of their assignments. But O’Neill and her classmates also just enjoy the graphic design and computer elements of the elective class.
Several dozen students participated in the project and spent about a week and a half creating the posters — sketching and coming up with designs and revising. Teacher Jacqueline Hartmann and her colleagues in the Career and Technical Education department at Oak Lawn Community voted on five of the projects to enter into the state contest.
Along with O’Neill’s poster, the OLCHS entries included the work of students Aljay Cuntapay, Daniel Mallo, Alex Merchan and Heather Sterling.
There were many great posters, but O’Neill’s stood out, Hartmann said, in part because she incorporates her original illustrations into the design.
“Eileen is a super creative and talented student,” the teacher said. “She’s a very talented artist in general but to be able to carry that into the graphic world is impressive.”
Combining creative talent with technical skill is a valuable lesson, Hartmann said, noting her graphic design students get dual credit from MVCC.
“It’s a form of art but it’s all on the computer,” she said. “Most of the students are so savvy on the computer that they’re super creative.”
Hartmann, who runs her own graphic design company, said she is always looking for competitions for the students to enter. But she said this one was special because of its message.
“It’s a really nice organization, where they do a lot to gear it towards students and adults to help them be aware of the dangers of addiction,” said Hartmann. “I thought it would be a great project.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
