Commercial Art Students Invent New Breakfast Cereals

On Dec. 13, 2011, four Eastern Center for Arts and Technology () Commercial Art students were hard at work creating a new breakfast cereal.

These students were in teams of two for their senior group project that entailed creating and naming a cereal, designing the cereal’s main character, designing the cereal box, and implementing the marketing campaign.

Karen Mason, a senior at Cheltenham High School and Macklin McNichol, a senior at Abington High School, created Pink Berries. Grace Albert, a senior at and Brianna Payton, a senior at Cheltenham High School, created Castle Critters.

A critical aspect of this project is learning how to properly photograph the food items in the most appetizing way possible, which always entails using inedible items in the process. Karen and Macklin used Crisco in the cereal to give it a thicker consistency so the cereal would not move during photography. They also used Elmer’s Glue to mimic the milk.

“This project provides Commercial Art students the opportunity to learn the professional techniques used in food photography,” said Robert Steinbacher, EASTERN’s Commercial Art Photography Instructor. “Food photography is just one of the many lucrative career paths students can take after completing our program.”

EASTERN’s Commercial Art program covers everything from conceptual drawing and design to a professional portfolio. Students learn the value and application of their unique styles in both design and illustration and students use industry standard software on the Macintosh platform. This software includes Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash.

For more information, please contact Amy Shields, Organizational Advancement Director at 215-784-4806, or visit the school’s website at www.eastech.org. Become a fan on Facebook – www.facebook.com/EasternCenter.

Information courtesy of Eastern Center for Arts and Technology.