Jacob Wright has been a Nascar fan since he was a kid, but he never thought he'd be in the position to design the wrap for a race car.
"I'm honestly just blown away, to be honest," said Wright, who on Friday found out his design was chosen to wrap Nathaniel Greenaway's number 93 race car for the upcoming Ontario Sportsmen Series season.
Wright, a third-year Graphic Design student at St. Clair College, came up with the proposal during his agency design class. He and 26 fellow classmates had a full day to produce a concept and design it by the end of the day.
Greenaway's girlfriend, Joline Driedger, is a graduate of the Graphic Design program and the two compared all the student submissions before landing on a top five list.
The students and professors found out the winner Friday, Feb. 28 during a grand unveiling at the St. Clair College Centre for the Arts.
"Being able to do a project like this, I was happy that I could do something that I was passionate for, and then also making something that he was passionate for," Wright said.
Wright said he had a few conversations with Greenaway the day he concocted the design, choosing to "lean-into" Greenaway's military background by creating a digital camouflage template, sticking with the team colours of red, white, and black.
"We had some good conversations about the history between stock cars and other designs in the past, then I started building on it," said Wright. "So, I'm really, really happy I could do this for him, and hopefully they can get some good wins with it."
"It's one thing to make it for them, it's another thing to see the reaction," Wright said. "That's why I do this line of work, just to see that reaction."
Greenaway, a former Saint himself, was excited to unveil the winning design in front of a crowd of more than 100 students.
"It's a remarkable feeling to be able to get this with the students, to have the incorporation with the College, and to be able to give them that experience towards a passion that I have," Greenaway said. "In person, it just looks way more incredible. And to have the student riding along with us all season long is going to be awesome."
Agency Design is meant to emulate the demands of a real-world design job, and Nick Kuipers, a professor of Graphic Design who oversees the class, said this sets a new benchmark for how students can interact with industry while in school.
"We have this course to prepare students for going out into internship and ultimately landing their first job," said Kuipers. "It's a wealth of joy for me to see something so tangible."
"The students, they just dove in with both feet. And it's amazing how you can have 27 people do the same project and get 27 completely different ideas," Kuipers added.
Greenaway was so impressed with the designs that he'd like to make this an annual project.
"Which is fantastic, because the more real-world experience they can get, the better," Kuipers said.
