Color your campus with the Herron student-illustrated coloring book

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The staples of IUPUI’s buildings and events have been translated to paper in the student-illustrated coloring book titled “Color Your Campus- IUPUI.” From the towering campus center to the Regatta, Herron illustration students filled the 88-page book with drawings of the university to color. 

The idea began with IU first lady, Laurie Mcrobbie, was taken up by Herron’s interim dean Greg Hull and then put into action by professors Lowell Isaac, Kyle Latino, Jingo de la Rosa, and department chair Vance Farrow, according to Farrow. 

Students were chosen to draw for the coloring because, as Farrow puts it, they wanted to capture the “vibe” of IUPUI. IUPUI is a diverse campus and they wanted to illustrate this through the diverse viewpoints of the Herron students. 

Faculty that helped with the coloring book believed that student illustrations would better represent IUPUI. Isaac, who helped guide the students through the process, believes that this approach hit at the core of what the school of art is trying to do. 

“That is the central guiding philosophy of our program; we want to help students find their own voices, and avoid encouraging a homogenized aesthetic,” Isaac said.

In addition to a range of viewpoints, faculty also thought having student illustrations would be an excellent development tool for their students. They wanted “to offer students an experience that mirrored professional practice, and expanded their repertoire into new territory.”

The project gave students an opportunity to work with client-specific criteria and create coloring book illustration, which many of the students had not done before, according to Farrow. 

The opportunity was a valuable experience for the student illustrators and it will have value for future drawing and illustration students. The money generated from the coloring book will go back into the program according to Isaac. 

“It is a way for us and our students to invest in future students,” he said. 

Faculty is happy with the end result and the illustrations by the students. 

Some of the drawings are fun and loose, others are very impressive technically, while still others are unique in their approach to the coloring book aesthetic,” Farrow said. 

Farrow hopes that colorers will enjoy the experience. “It’s a collaboration of sorts between the illustrator and the colorist. When both play their parts, each page can be realized in new and unique ways,” he said.

“Color Your Campus- IUPUI” can be bought from the campus bookstore, amazon, or from the iupress.org. You can use discount code “coloring” for 30 percent off on iupress.org. The discount code is available until April 1. 

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