Folly Jazz Series
A Collaboration for the Future of Arts & Graphic Design!
Kansas City Art Institute and The Folly Theater Jazz Series
KCAI and the Folly Theater are collaborating again for the 9th year in a row to help engage KCAI students with Kansas City history, Jazz music, and marketing. This year's collaboration will be bigger than ever incorporating several graphic design students, judges from various industries that affect marketing and design, a special partnership with the city of Kansas City, and the most diverse Folly Jazz series to date!A Little Background...
Roughly 9 years ago, our executive director, Gale Tallis, engaged with KCAI to work with their graphic arts and design students to design posters for our annual Jazz Series. "Our 'cut and paste' attempt of making posters wasn't cutting it and we knew there were generations out there that needed the experience and could do better than we could!", Gale explained to the students today as they toured the Folly Theater. For the last nine years, KCAI students have come to the theater, learned about the theater and the musicians playing in that season. They go back to the school and create their own posters for the artists that will perform. The students have an amazing ability to take the artist's musical stylings & cultural influences, the historical essence of the Folly, and their own imagination, and present a wonderful poster to draw the eye and attention. Once the posters are printed up the students are all invited to join each show, have their poster's signed, and be recognized on stage for all their hard work. Many students have continued communication with the artists, the Folly, and gain work to add to their portfolios!The Esteemed Judges!
Every year, Gale Tallis seeks out influencers and partners in the community that affect and live in the world of design and marketing. This year she brought back a couple of familiar judges and a couple new faces! Gale Tallis, Executive Director of the Folly Theater James Maiden, Marketing Manager at the Folly Theater Brian Henry, Creative Director of Lamar Advertising of Kansas City Mikaela Garrett, Designer at Rival Graphic Design Joshua Shelton, Senior Account Executive with NextPage PrintingKCAI Tours the Folly Theater
August 28th was the first visit for the KCAI Graphic Design class to visit the theater and enjoy a tour with Gale & James explaining the history of the theater, the jazz series musicians, and the importance of the marketing and posters for the series!
[gallery columns="6" ids="9071,9072,9073,9074,9075,9076,9077,9078,9079,9080,9081,9082,9083,9084,9085,9086,9087,9088"]Office of Culture and Creative Services
We're so excited to announce our partnership with the City of Kansas City and its Office of Culture and Creative Services! One thing lacking over the last few years is public knowledge of the collaboration between KCAI and the Folly Theater. So with the mission of shedding light on the program, our marketing manager, James Maiden, and the Arts Marketing Coordinator at the Culture and Creative Services office, Consuelo Cruz, met to discuss what they could do! The Office of Culture and Creative Services will help document with professional photographers and videographers, publish an article focusing on the collaboration and what it does for KCAI students in KCMOre Magazine, and even do a feature on Channel 2 for Kansas Citians to learn more and see the back end of the process! You can keep up with the city and their documentation on the Channel 2 website, the KCMOre Magazine site, and their Facebook page!Slideshow of the Final Review!
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