Art Students Create Virtual Candidates

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The first android candidates for 2048 President of the United States who are campaigning in Second Life invite everyone at the University of Arkansas to visit their new campaign booths.

Students in Tom Hapgood’s art course Visual Design: Web 2have created a convention hall, of sorts, on the University of Arkansas’ island in the Second Life virtual world. The nine students in the advanced Web design course were tasked with studying the 2008 presidential candidates’ graphic identity and creating a visual identity for their particular android candidate, or ‘andidate,’ for short.

“I asked them to create the ‘andidate’ from the ground up — the name, slogan and visual language of the identity,” said Hapgood, an assistant professor of art in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. “I then had them use Adobe Flash to render an animated logo for the andidate, followed by some time in Second Life creating a small branded presence for the andidate.”

The project assisted the visual design students — most of whom will go on to work in design firms on projects such as corporate identities, movie trailers, motion design, posters, books and other projects — to create an identity, learn the techniques of motion design and 3D modeling, and then explore successful environmental and signage design.

Second Life is a three-dimensional virtual world created by computer users who are its “residents.” Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of residents from around the globe. Anyone on campus is welcome to explore the andidates’ booths by entering the Second Life virtual world and then navigating to the University of Arkansas island, either by entering coordinates or searching on the map for “University of Arkansas.”  The art department's section of the island is at the following coordinates: 158,218,27.

The Web address for Second Life is http://www.secondlife.com, and more information about the art department’s site is available at http://www.uark.edu/ua/hapgood/courses/webdesign/?page_id=6.